I 


^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  <ff 


Purchased  by  the 
Mrs,  Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund. 


Division... 
Section...*. 
Number  V.?..^  

 ^  ■"P-^  / 


i 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/historyofmethodi02drin 


ALNUTT  MEMORIAL  CHURCH  AND  PARSONAGE, 
BALTIMORE,  MD. 


HISTORY 


OP 


METHODIST  KEFORM 


SYNOPTICAL  OF  GENERAL  METHODISM 
1703  TO  1898 

WITH  SPECIAL  AND  COMPREHENSIVE  REFERENCE  TO  ITS  MOST 
SALIENT  EXHIBITION  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 


METHODIST  PROTESTANT  CHURCH 


EDWARD  J.  DRINKHOUSE,  M.D.,  D.D. 


(eighteen  years  editor  of  "  THE  METHODIST  PROTESTANT  ") 


"  Power  combined  with  interest  and  inclination  cannot  be  con- 
trolled by  logic.  But  even  power  shrinks  from  the  test  of  logic." 

**  I  lay  it  down  as  an  axiom  that  the  religious  liberty  of  a 
people  should  never  be  reduced  below  the  standard  of  their  civil 
liberty." —Nicholas  Snethen. 

The  equity  of  all  history  is :  Hear  the  other  side.  —  The 
Author. 


.  THE  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 
OF  THE  METHODIST  PROTESTANT  CHURCH 

WM.  J.  C.  DULANY,  Agent,  Baltimore,  Md. 

F.  W.  PIERPONT,  Agent,  Pittbbubgh,  Pa. 


BY 


Ad  astra  per  aspera 


VOLUME  II 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S99, 
By  EDWARD  J.  DlilNKHOUSE, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.C. 


NortooolJ  I9rf8s 

J.  S.  Cmhins  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Masi.  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


VOL.  II 
CHAPTER  I 

PAGB 

1820  —  History  as  reflecting  the  individuality  of  the  author  —  The  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1820 ;  great  question  of  this  Conference,  the 
Elective  Presiding  Eldership ;  how  it  was  carried  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  ;  the  joint  veto  of  M'Kendree  and  Soule  overrides  the  two-thirds 
and  demonstrates  the  superiority  of  the  bishopric  over  the  General 
Conference ;  an  expose  of  the  whole  business  as  never  before  set 
forth;  the  strategy  and  the  "dark  lantern"  proceedings  by  which 
the  ruling  was  "  suspended  "  —  Other  Conference  proceedings       .  1 

CHAPTER  II 

1820-1823  —  The  defeat  of  the  Eldership  matter  was  the  seed  of  the 
Reform  of  1827-30  —  Stockton's  Wesleyan  Bepository  in  1821  — 
The  local  preachers'  contention  and  its  damage  to  the  lay-represen- 
tation movement  —  First  public  Reform  meeting  in  Cincinnati, 
August  19,  1823  ;  Ezekiel  Cooper's  plan  ;  early  Reformers     .       .  19 


CHAPTER  III 

1823-1825  —  Defeat  of  the  Reform  preachers  to  the  General  Conference 
of  1824  ;  how  and  why  ;  the  Episcopal  Address  moulded  to  kill  the 
Reform  memorials  by  anticipation  —  T.  E.  Bond  and  Thomas  Kelso 
as  Reformers  —  Means  by  which  the  "suspended"  resolutions  were 
disposed  of  —  Soule  and  Hedding  elected  sectional  bishops ;  secret 
reasons  no  delegate  was  sent  to  the  British  Conference  —  Eminent 
Reformers  46 


CHAPTER  IV 

1824-1826  — Lay  rights  denied  by  the  late  General  Conference;  the 
whole  question  traversed  and  full  statement  for  both  sides  —  The 
Bepository  discontinued ;  reasons  for  it  —  The  Mutual  Bights  in- 
augurated in  Baltimore,  1824  ;  both  sides  admitted  to  its  columns  ; 
spread  of  the  "Union  Societies"  —  Contributors  to  several  volumes 
of  the  Mutual  Bights ;  first  expulsions  in  Tennessee ;  the  Stillwell 

Reformers  of  1820    64 

iii 


iv 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  V 

PAGB 

1824-1827  —  Reform  in  North  Carolina  fully  considered ;  prosecutions 
and  expulsions  —  Prosecutions  resumed  in  Baltimore  ;  effort  to  unify 
the  Reformers ;  a  Convention  called  in  Baltimore  to  this  end,  No- 
vember, 1826  —  Analysis  of  Dr.  Bond's  character —  Christian  Advo- 
cate, issued  September,  1826  ;  a  battery  against  Reform ;  bishops' 
meeting  in  1827  —  Reform  Convention  in  Baltimore,  November, 
1826;  "Union  Societies"  and  Wesley's  "United  Societies"  kin- 
dred ;  Bascom  vindicated  as  a  Reformer  84 


CHAPTER  VI 

1827  —  Agitation  following  the  Reform  Convention  ;  Baltimore  a  camp 
of  Methodist  spies  ;  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  suspended  and  then  expelled  ; 
graphic  account  of  it ;  it  rouses  Reformers  with  Bascom  in  the  lead 
—  Alexander  McCains  looks  into  the  Episcopacy  and  makes  dis- 
coveries and  raises  a  new  issue  —  Dr.  Bond's  "Appeal  to  the  Metho- 
dists"  101 


CHAPTER  VII 

1827  —  Dr.  Bond's  "Appeal"  drew  the  line  between  Reformers  and 
Anti-Reformers ;  Bond  manipulates  for  expulsions ;  methods ;  eleven 
local  preachers  and  twenty-two  laymen  expelled  in  Baltimore ; 
McCaine  outlawed  and  expelled ;  outside  community  indignant ; 
Bond  tries  to  mollify  by  his  "Narrative"  and  "Defence";  Re- 
formers held  to  a  principle,  Anti-Reformers  to  the  power,  and  so 
could  not  understand  each  other  119 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1827  — General  Convention  of  Reformers  in  Baltimore,  1827  — Full 
account  of  it ;  address  to  the  General  Church,  and  memorial  to  the 
General  Conference  ensuing — Dr.  Bond  calls  a  halt  of  expulsions; 
the  Dr.  Green  plot  —  The  Baltimore  district  conference  dissolved  by 
the  vote  of  colored  members;  its  significance  at  the  time;  immorality 
question  considered   135 


CHAPTER  IX 

1827-1828  — The  General  Conference  of  1828;  the  Dr.  Brown  and 
Bishop  George  question  fully  considered  ;  Shinn's  defence  of  Dor- 
sey and  Pool  before  the  Conference  ;  guileful  compromise  proposed  ; 
another  dark-lantern  caucus  to  secure  the  ratification  of  the  expul- 
sions ;  final  disposition  of  the  "suspended  resolutions";  Emory's 
tergiversations ;  change  of  the  Restrictive  Rule  for  altering  the 
so-called  Constitution  of  the  Church  148 


CONTENTS 


V 


CHAPTER  X 

PAGK 

1828  —  Analysis  of  the  Report  of  the  General  Conference  on  lay  peti- 
tions written  by  Emory  and  prompted  by  Bond  —  A  careful  and 
thorough  review  of  McCaine's  "  History  and  Mystery,"  and  of  Dr. 
Emory's  "Defence  of  Our  Fathers,"  and  McCaine's  rejoinder; 
Dr.  Stevens's  famous  chapter  on  the  ordination  of  Dr.  Coke  in  his 
History,  considered  and  disposed  of ;  McCaine's  positions  never 
successfully  controverted  167 


CHAPTER  XI 

1828  —  Effect  of  the  action  of  the  General  Conference  on  Reformers  of 
several  grades;  Dr.  Buckley  on  "rights"  and  on  "withdrawal" 
of  Reformers  analyzed  —  Formal  organization  of  Reformers  in  Balti- 
more at  St.  John's  Church  ;  the  "  Methodist "  Church  of  Pittsburgh ; 
priority  ;  Reform  in  Cincinnati  as  early  as  1822  ;  Truman  Bishop  ; 
organizations  elsewhere  —  The  Mutual  Bights  with  Dorsey  as  editor, 
1828-29    192 


CHAPTER  XII 

1828-1830  —  Second  Convention  of  Reformers  in  Baltimore,  November, 
1828 ;  full  account ;  Articles  of  Association ;  organizing  agents 
appointed  to  travel  in  the  interest  of  Reform  until  1830 ;  committee 
in  the  interval  to  draft  a  Constitution  and  Discipline  for  the  new 
Church;  proposal  to  have  a  General  President  rejected;  action 
since  205 

CHAPTER  XIII 

1830-1831 — Who  is  responsible  for  the  new  Church?  —  The  property 
question  fully  analyzed;  the  case  of  the  Georgetown,  D.  C,  Re- 
formers, a  type  of  others  ;  Reform  crippled  for  want  of  preachers  ; 
camp-meetings  —  Dr.  Bond  resumes  persecutions  of  Reformers  and 
Reform ;  starts  the  Itinerant ;  an  analysis  of  it  fairly  put  for  the 
three  years  of  its  continuance  216 


CHAPTER  XIV 

1828-1830  —  History  of  the  formation  of  Annual  Conferences  from 
1828-30  — Evans's  "  Question  and  Answer  Book  on  Church  Polity," 
known  as  "yellow  jackets"  —  Snethen  as  a  travelling  organizer  — 
First  Auxiliary  Superannuated  Society  ;  the  Phcebian  of  St.  John's, 
Baltimore  ;  success  of  the  new  Church ;  Bascom  prepares  his  "  Sum- 
mary of  Rights,"  for  the  new  Church  Constitution;  its  history; 
full  text  of  it  in  Appendix  I,  first  volume  236 


vi 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XV 

PAGE 

1830  —  Third  Convention  of  Reformers  in  Baltimore,  November,  1830; 
history  of  it ;  centrifugalists  and  centripetalists  formed  two  parties  ; 
analogous  parties  in  the  United  States'  Convention  of  1787  ;  logical 
philosophy  of  "  Church  "  and  "  churches"  ;  who  finally  signed  the 
Constitution  ;  history  of  certain  articles  252 


CHAPTER  XVI 

1830-1834  —  The  new  Church  must  prove  its  right  to  exist  —  The 
Methodist  Correspondent  established  at  Cincinnati ;  the  new  Church 
growing  at  the  rate  of  fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent  yearly  ;  new 
organizations  in  many  directions  —  Pastoral  Address  of  the  M.  E. 
General  Conference  of  1834  ;  slanderously  attacks  the  new  Church 
—  The  Methodist  Protestant,  Gamaliel  Bailey,  editor;  The  Coj're- 
spondent  removed  to  Pittsburgh;  then  to  Zanesville  —  Secession  in 
Charleston,  S.  C,  from  the  old  Church  279 


CHAPTER  XVn 

1834-1838  — The  General  Conference  of  1834;  sketch  of  it;  the  Book 
Concern  and  losses  under  Harrod  —  The  Methodist  Correspondent 
in  its  sixth  and  last  volume  —  New  plan  for  the  Book  Concern  — 
The  Second  General  Conference  of  1838  ;  full  account  of  it  ;  salient 
business  ;  slavery  question  re\ived  ;  compromise  through  Dr.  Brown 
—  T.  H.  Stockton  elected  editor  of  the  Baltimore  Official  as  a  "  free  " 
paper ;  the  Book  Committee  contest,  and  the  upshot       .       .       .  294 


CHAPTER  XVin 

1838-1842  — The  year  of  1839  a  year  of  great  prosperity  to  the  new 
Church  —  Lawrenceburg  College  burned;  obituaries  of  Reformers 
increasing  —  The  Third  General  Conference  of  1842  ;  history  of  it  — 
Dr.  Bond,  editor  of  the  Neio  York  Christian  Advocate,  rampant  — 
The  St.  John's  church,  Baltimore,  "mission"  controversy,  and 
damaging  results  312 

CHAPTER  XIX 

1842-1846 — Dr.  "Webster,  editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper;  New  Jersey 
Conference  set  off  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  in 
1844 ;  sketch  of  it ;  the  division ;  what  it  meant,  and  how  under- 
stood—  Proposal  to  establish  Snethen  Seminarj'  at  Iowa  City  — 
Paris's  "  Church  History  "  —  Fourth  General  Conference  at  Cincin- 
nati, 1846  ;  slavery  discussion  intensified  by  the  division  of  the  old 
Church  ;  the  Philadelphia  "mission"  question  ;  growth  of  the  new 
Church  under  difficulties;  Bishop  M'Tyeire's  estimate  of  the  Re- 
form Church  dissected  333 


CONTENTS 


vii 


CHAPTER  XX 

PAOB 

1846-1850  — E.  Yeates  Reese  reelected  editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper  ; 
new  Conferences  —  Fraternity  inaugurated  with  the  old  Church  at 
their  General  Conference  of  1848  —  Madison  College  tendered  the 
new  Church ;  brief  history  of  the  misadventure  ;  college  started  at 
Lynchburg,  Va.  ;  also  at  Cambridge,  O.  ;  the  latter  destroyed  first 
by  a  storm  and  then  by  fire  —  Rev.  W.  W.  Hill  deceased ;  sketch 
of  him  363 

CHAPTER  XXI 

1860  —  The  Fifth  General  Conference  of  1850  in  Baltimore;  sketch  of 
it ;  Madison  College  accepted  ;  Steubenville  selected  for  the  next 
Conference,  by  the  narrow  vote  of  twenty-four  to  twenty-three  — 
Statistics  show  but  a  small  net  gain ;  significance  of  it ;  the  same 
true  of  the  M.  E.  Church  ;  the  Book  Concern  report  the  most  favor- 
able ever  made ;  E.  Yeates  Reese  unanimously  reelected  editor  — 
The  Constitution  of  the  new  Church  a  success  after  twenty  years' 
trial  364 

CHAPTER  XXII 

1860-1864  —  The  Board  of  Missions  stirs  itself  and  makes  tentative 
efforts  for  China  and  Oregon  —  The  great  Wesleyan  Methodist 
Reform  culminates  with  a  vast  secession  —  The  laity  in  the  M.  E. 
Church  aroused,  and  mass-meetings  held  for  lay-delegation  in  vari- 
ous cities,  but  as  usual  it  came  to  nothing,  as  officialism  frowned  it 
down  —  Obituaries  of  early  Reformers ;  the  McGehee  College  in 
Alabama  opened,  and  Dr.  A.  A.  Lipscomb  elected  President  —  Dr. 
T.  E.  Bond  reelected  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate  to 
stem  the  rising  tide  of  lay-delegationists  in  that  Church  —  Death  of 
Asa  Shinn  373 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

1854-1857— The  Sixth  General  Conference  of  1854;  digest  of  its 
doings ;  conservative  report  on  the  slavery  question,  from  a  com- 
mittee of  Northern  brethren ;  a  plan  for  the  division  of  the  Book 
Concern  reported  and  adopted  ;  intended  as  a  peace  measure  ;  new 
hymn  book  ordered  ;  statistics  ;  the  new  Church  a  success  from  the 
figures;  obituaries  386 

^  CHAPTER  XXIV 

1864-1858  —  Dissatisfaction  with  the  plan  to  divide  the  Book  Concern, 
but  the  respective  Conventions  of  Conferences  met  and  it  was  con- 
summated; history  of  them  —  Agitation  in  the  Western  paper  on 


viii 


CONTENTS 


slavery  ;  menaces  of  separation  from  the  East  and  South ;  steps 
taken  ;  Lynchburg  College  and  its  finality  ;  Yadkin  College,  North 
Carolina  ;  agitation  of  slavery  in  the  old  Church  ;  signs  of  disunion 
in  the  States  408 

CHAPTER  XXV 

1858  —  The  Seventh  General  Conference  at  Lynchburg,  Va. ;  the  over- 
shadowing business  the  Memorial  from  the  Cincinnati  Convention 
of  the  North  and  West  setting  forth  their  ultimatum,  or  "suspen- 
sion" of  oflBcial  relations  with  the  East  and  South  ;  full  history  of 
it ;  incidental  business  —  Interesting  proceedings  in  the  Episcopal 
Methodisms  —  Separation  of  the  North  and  West  consummated     .  422 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

1858-1862  —  Double  history  of  the  Conferences  North  and  West,  and 
those  of  the  East  and  South  —  Abel  Stevens  rebuked  by  the  General 
Conference  of  the  old  Church  for  liberal  views  ;  defeated  for  the 
editorship  of  the  Neio  York  Advocate;  the  Neio  York  Methodist 
established  by  Crooks  and  M'Clintock,  as  organ  of  lay-delegation 
—  Conventions  in  Pittsburgh  and  Cincinnati  respectively,  fully 
reported  —  The  Civil  War  inaugurated  438 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

1862-1866  —  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in 
1862;  default  of  attendance  —  General  Conference  of  May,  1865; 
its  action  —  The  Wesleyans  and  the  brethren  North  and  West  begin 
an  ecclesiastical  courtship  —  Regular  General  Conference  at  George- 
town, D.  C,  in  May,  1866;  what  it  did  —  Methodist  "Union"  now 
in  the  air  —  Western  Maryland  College  456 

CHAPTER  XXVm 

1866-1867  —  The  Non-Episcopal  Methodist  Convention  of  the  North  and 
West  in  1866  ;  histoiy  of  it  in  full  ;  its  default  through  the  infidelity 
of  Wesleyans  —  Dissentients  in  North  Carolina  recognized  by  the 
"Methodist"  Church  —  More  general  "Union"  schemes  specially 
from  the  Church,  South ;  what  they  meant  472 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

1867  — The  Montgomery  Convention  of  May,  1867  ;  the  overshadowing 
business  the  proposal  of  the  Church,  South,  of  Union  ;  full  history 
of  it ;  ecclesiastical  finesse  ;  died  of  inanition  —  Holston  Conference 
organized  —  Sunday-school  demonstration  in  Baltimore  —  General 
Conference  of  the  "Methodist"  Church  at  Cleveland,  1867;  the 
Wesleyans  not  present ;  Adrian  College  transferred  to  the  "  Metho- 
dist"  brethren  legally   485 


CONTENTS 


ix 


CHAPTER  XXX 

PAGE 

1867-1871  —  Dissevered  Methodist  Protestants  coming  together  — The 
Tenth  General  Conference  of  the  Church  in  Baltimore,  May,  1870 ; 
its  personnel ;  report  on  Fraternal  Delegations ;  other  proceedings 
—  Secession  to  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  from  the  Virginia,  Alabama, 
and  Mississippi  Conferences ;  full  history  in  each  case ;  a  preacher 
movement  —  J.  J.  Amos  of  Indiana  makes  a  gift  of  $21,000  to 
Adrian  College ;  obituaries  of  Reformers ;  Western  Book  Concern 
removed  to  Pittsburgh  500 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

1871-1874  —  General  Conference  of  the  "Methodist"  Church,  May, 
1871 ;  union  suggested  by  the  fraternal  messengers  from  Maryland, 
Rev.  Dr.  J.  T.  Murray  and  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick ;  reciprocated 
—  The  Virginia  Conference  of  1871,  at  Norfolk,  Va.;  full  history  of 
its  doings  —  The  General  Conference  at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  May,  1874  ; 
what  it  did  as  to  the  brethren  West  and  North ;  reconstruction  of 
the  Baltimore  Book  Concern  —  A  perilous  period  of  the  Church  his- 
tory ;  moral  heroism  of  its  preachers  and  laity  515 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

1874-1876  —  General  Conference  of  the  "  Methodist "  Church  at  Prince- 
ton, 111.,  May,  1875;  more  fraternity  from  the  other  Methodisms ; 
Commissioners  appointed  by  the  "  Methodist"  Church  to  meet  like 
Commissioners  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  to  formulate  a 
plan  of  Union  ;  what  it  did  ;  a  General  Convention  called  for  Balti- 
more, May,  1877  —  The  M.  E.  General  Conference  of  1876  ;  homily 
on  its  system  535 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

1876-1877  —  Preparations  for  the  General  Convention  of  the  two 
Churches  now  assured  by  the  vote  of  the  respective  Annual  Con- 
ferences —  It  assembled  May  11,  1877,  in  Baltimore ;  roster  of 
members  in  each  separate  Convention  in  different  churches  of  the 
city  ;  final  action  of  each  ;  reunion  at  Starr  church  and  the  General 
Convention,  with  full  account  of  its  proceedings ;  new  Constitution 
and  Discipline  formed ;  General  Conference  called  for  Pittsburgh, 
May,  1880  ;  statistics  of  the  reunited  body  563 


X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

PACK 

1077-1880  —  History  of  the  Annual  Council ;  new  Church  life  inspired 
by  the  union  of  1877  ;  official  editors  traverse  the  Southwest,  visiting 
Conferences  —  The  Bible  School  Series  inaugurated  in  Baltimore 
and  successfully  carried  forward ;  Rev.  J.  B.  Walker's  agency  of 
Western  Maryland  College  ;  disposal  of  its  $25,000  debt ;  great 
success  of  the  reunited  Church  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E. 
Church,  1880 ;  lay-delegation  573 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

1880-1884— Thirteenth  General  Conference  at  Pittsburgh,  May,  1880  ; 
what  it  did  ;  organization  and  recognition  of  the  Women's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  and  what  it  did ;  unification  of  the  publishing 
interests ;  a  plan  from  the  Baltimore  Directory  adopted ;  other 
doings  of  this  Conference ;  Ecumenical  Conference  in  London, 
1881  —  Theological  Seminary  at  Westminster  inaugurated  by  Rev. 
Dr.  T.  H.  Lewis  ;  a  homily  on  Church  fidelity  684 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

1884-1886  — The  Fourteenth  General  Conference,  Baltimore,  May, 
1884;  it  is  called  a  "General  Convention,"  but  it  was  such  for 
specific  purposes  only  —  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Union,  as  well 
as  the  Congregational  Methodist  Union  defaults  by  the  disfavor  of 
officialism ;  ordination  of  women  considered ;  instances  and  legal 
effect  —  Centennial  Conference  of  the  Episcopal  Methodisms,  com- 
missioners sent ;  organic  union  a  dream  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers  .  610 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

1888-1891  —  Comparison  of  statistics  for  the  first  fifty  years  of  the 
M.  E.  and  the  M.  P.  Churches  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E. 
Church  ;  women  delegates  and  lay-delegation  before  it  —  Fifteenth 
General  Conference  at  Adrian,  May,  1888  ;  committee  of  nine  to 
revise  the  Articles  of  Religion  ;  statistics  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers  ; 
the  Heathsville,  Va.,  church  case;  the  Christian  Endeavor  move- 
ment in  the  Church  631 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

1891-1896  —  Second  Ecumenical  Methodist  Conference,  and  what  came 
of  it — Sixteenth  General  Conference,  Westminster,  May,  1892  ;  the 
women  question  again  —  The  search  for  a  "Constitution"  in  the 
M.  E.  Church  unavailing — Obituaries  of  Reformers  ;  Dr.  Mather's 
bequest  to  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  University  —  Great  meetings  of  lay- 
men in  the  M.  E.  Church  demanding  lay-delegation        .       .       .  650 


CONTENTS 


xi 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

PAGE 

1896-1898  —  Seventeenth  General  Conference,  Kansas  City,  Kan., 
May,  1896;  reelection  of  Dr.  Hering  as  President;  corner-stone 
laying  of  the  University  ;  H.  J.  Heinz's  gift  of  $10,000  to  the 
University;  great  increase  of  the  Church's  Y.  P.  S.  of  C.  E.;  in- 
corporation of  the  General  Conference  ;  overtures  to  the  Annual 
Conferences;  excellent  financial  exhibits  of  the  General  Boards; 
statistics  show  a  net  gain  of  nearly  twenty -seven  per  cent  in  mem- 
bers, and  of  nearly  twenty-five  per  cent  of  church  property ;  a  re- 
markable showing  for  any  denomination  —  Obituaries  —  Result  of 
overtures  to  the  Conferences  670 


CHAPTER  XL 

Argumentative  summation  :  —  Have  the  postulates  of  the  introductory 
chapter  been  proven  ?  —  Ideals  in  polities  :  Individualism  vs.  Pater- 
nalism—  The  Methodist  Protestant  polity  ideally  set  forth ;  defects 
subjective  and  objective ;  may  be  remedied,  but  Paternalism  a  sea 
of  unrest  and  can  never  be  quieted  —  Proofs  that  a  voting,  lay-repre- 
sentative Church  has  succeeded,  other  things  being  equal,  as  well  as 
a  non-voting,  clerically  governed  Church ;  liberal  Methodism  a  suc- 
cess both  in  England  and  America ;  upshot  of  the  whole  matter ; 
prognostications  686 


Index  709 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME  II 

Alnutt  Memorial  Church  and  Parsonage,  Baltimore 

Frontispiece 

Dennis  B.  Dorsey   104 

St.  John's  Church,  Baltimore   139 

Group  of  Starr,  Reese,  and  Reese   149 

First  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  Pittsburgh       .      .  198 

Group  of  Hopper,  McCormick,  and  Waters    ....  255 

Group  of  Collier,  Bassett,  and  Brown  .      .  '    .      .      .  299 

Group  of  Paris,  Gray,  and  Wills   342 

Group  of  Robison,  Thrapp,  and  Burns   355 

Group  of  Clawson,  Nestor,  and  Laishley     ....  409 

Western  Maryland  College   470 

Joel  S.  Thrap   478 

Thomas  H.  Stockton   501 

Adrian  College,  Michigan                                               .  518 

Westminster  Theological  Seminary   598 

Mission  School  at  Yokohama,  Japan       .....  616 

Shizuoka  Mission  Chapel  and  School,  Japan       •      •      .  654 

Annual  Conference  of  Japan   658 

Seventeenth  General  Conference  of  1896  at  Kansas  City, 

Kansas  .671 

University  op  Kansas  City,  Kansas   674 

J.  T.  Ward   679 

J.  J.  Smith   686 

xiii 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFOEM 


CHAPTER  I 

History  as  reflecting  the  individuality  of  the  author,  with  application  —  The  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1820 ;  how  composed ;  McCaine,  Secretary  though  not  a  mem- 
ber—  Great  question  of  this  Conference;  the  elective  presiding  eldership  as 
carried,  and  its  defeat  by  the  joint  veto  of  M'Kendree  and  Soule  overriding 
the  two-thirds  majority,  thus  demonstrating  the  superiority  of  the  Episcopacy 
over  the  General  Conference  which  had  created  it  —  An  exhaustive  expose  of 
all  the  steps  open  and  covert,  which  from  beginning  to  ending  of  the  Confer- 
ence marked  the  determination  of  the  contending  parties ;  M'Kendree  and  less- 
than  a  third  of  the  Conference  against  Bishops  George  and  Roberts  and  over 
two-thirds  of  the  Conference;  the  strategy  employed,  and  the  dark-lantern 
proceedings  that  in  the  end  secured  the  "  suspension  "  of  the  adopted  measure 
—  Other  proceedings. 

The  late  James  Anthony  Froude,  the  English  historian,  em- 
ployed in  one  of  his  lectures  a  striking  illustration  of  historical 
methods :  "  It  often  seems  to  me  as  if  history  was  like  a  child^s 
box  of  letters,  with  which  we  can  spell  any  word  we  please.  We 
have  only  to  pick  out  such  letters  as  we  want,  arrange  them  as 
we  like,  and  say  nothing  about  those  that  do  not  suit  our  purpose." 
An  equally  striking  exposition  of  his  meaning  is  thus  given: 
"  Much  so-called  history  has  been  written  from  this  receipt  no 
doubt,  not  so  much  because  men  do  not  regard  the  suppressio  veri 
with  as  stern  condemnation  as  the  expressio  falsi,  as  that  man's 
vision  is  so  easily  limited  by  insufficient  knowledge  and  so  often 
distorted  by  party  passion."  The  facts  thus  reflected  have  led  to 
the  adage,  that  there  is  nothing  so  false  as  history.  The  phe- 
nomenal thing  about  them  is,  that  they  apply  quite  as  forcibly 
and  truthfully  to  ecclesiastical  as  to  political  history.  One  neces- 
sary reason  for  it  is  that  the  facts  of  the  past,  in  given  groups, 
have  more  than  one'  side,  and  not  unfrequently  are  many-sided. 
The  individuality  of  the  writer  is  the  controlling  factor,  and  his 
point  of  view  is  made  the  objective.  The  reader  of  history 
naturally  and  reasonably  expects  to  find  deductions,  the  assump- 
tion being  that  next  to  participation  in  them,  full  possession  of 

VOL.  n  —  B  1 


2 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  facts  furnishes  a  vantage  not  to  be  lost,  whatever  the  reader's 
final  verdict  may  be. 

The  volume  just  closed  has  been  written  on  this  theory,  the 
writer  not  claiming  exemption  from  the  common  infirmity  of  his- 
toriographers. What  is  claimed  is  that  Methodist  Eeform  as  a 
general  question,  and  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  a  par- 
ticular instance,  have  suffered  through  the  pens  of  writers  partial, 
if  not  partisan,  in  their  favor  of  the  old  regimes  of  Methodism, 
and  that  the  truth  of  history  demands  that  the  group  of  facts 
defensive  of  the  former,  and  hitherto  suppressed,  minified,  or 
construed,  should  be  uncovered,  coordinated,  and  depicted  in  full 
proportions;  and  if  the  critical  reader  thinks  he  discovers  any 
undue  coloring,  the  insistence  is  that  it  does  not  more  than  neu- 
tralize like  effects  in  the  other  class  of  writers.  It  is  believed, 
with  as  much  modesty  as  the  nature  of  the  subject  admits,  thpvt 
the  postulates  of  the  first  volume  have  been  sustained ;  that  much 
information  never  hitherto  published,  either  because  unsuited  to 
the  objective  of  the  writer  or  inaccessible  to  him,  has  been  brought 
to  light ;  that  no  source  of  information  or  professed  authority  has 
been  neglected ;  and  that  much  fuller  force  has  been  allowed  oppos- 
ing facts  and  inferences  than  has  been  given  by  standard  historians 
and  monographists.  If  a  portly  volume  has  been  filled  before 
reaching  the  General  Conference  of  1820,  the  inciting  cause  of 
the  great  lay-representative  movement  of  the  succeeding  decade, 
it  has  been  because  the  heroic  of  a  common  Methodism,  as  well 
as  the  whole  line  of  historic  facts,  belong  to  Eeformers  as  well, 
and  specially  because,  as  has  been  made  evident,  no  history  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  can  be  written,  logically  stated 
and  philosophically  treated,  that  does  not  take  into  account  kin- 
dred movements  and  the  general  trend  of  Methodism.  From 
1820  onward  the  Reform  agitation,  progress,  culmination,  and 
status  shall  receive  paramount  attention,  and,  having  a  heroic 
period  of  its  own,  economy  of  space,  as  well  as  emergence  from 
such  a  period  in  the  past,  will  dismiss  from  these  pages  the 
history  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  except  as  a  counter 
illustration  and  necessary  factor. 

The  General  Conference  of  1820  met  in  Baltimore,  May  1,  1820, 
in  Eutaw  Street  church.  It  was  composed  of  eighty-nine  mem- 
bers and  the  three  bishops,  —  M'Kendree,  George,  and  Roberts. 
Eleven  were  from  New  York  Conference,  ten  from  New  England, 
seven  from  Genesee,  eight  from  Ohio,  three  from  Missouri,  two 
from  Mississippi,  six  from  Tennessee,  nine  from  South  Carolina, 


( 


VOLUME  FIEST  AND  SECOND  —  HOW  RELATED  3 


eight  from  Virginia,  nine  from  Baltimore,  and  fourteen  from 
Philadelphia.  A  full  list  is  given  by  Bangs,  and  it  shows  the 
names  of  most  of  the  leading  preachers  of  the  day.  M'Kendree 
opened  the  Conference  and  submitted  his  Address,  and  stated 
that,  owing  to  his  feeble  health,  he  would  not  be  able  to  preside, 
but  would  assist  his  colleagues  as  far  as  possible.  Alexander 
McCaine  was  elected  Secretary,  though  not  a  member  of  the  Con- 
ference, following  a  precedent  already  set.  It  was  a  high  com- 
pliment to  his  ability  and  integrity.  Turning  aside  from  minor 
matters,  the  objective  of  this  History  is  reached  by  a  careful  con- 
sideration of  the  great  questions  which  were  passed  upon  by  this 
Conference :  the  elective  presiding  eldership  and  the  -supremacy 
of  the  Bishopric  over  the  General  Conference,  as  an  interpreter 
of  so-called  constitutional  law,  the  first  as  a  finality,  and  the  second 
accepted  until  reversed  by  the  General  Conference  of  1844.  The 
former  had  been  thoroughly  discussed  in  the  Annual  Conferences 
and  in  private  correspondence  since  the  death  of  Asbury,  and 
nearly  all  the  delegates  came  to  Baltimore,  as  well  as  the  bishops, 
with  well-defined  views,  and  with  most  of  them  under  no  con- 
cealment. Snethen  was  present  as  a  spectator,  and  furnishes 
important  information  about  it.  He  was  now  located  on  his 
farm  in  Frederick  County,  Md.,  and  was  not,  perhaps,  among  the 
eligibles  as  a  delegate,  though  he  himself  says,  writing  in  1822 : 
"  It  is  now  nearly  twenty  years  since  I  resolved  never  to  enter  a 
General  Conference  to  make  laws  for  others  without  their  consent. 
In  one  instance,  indeed,  I  broke  this  resolution  (1808);  but  it 
affords  me  no  self-complacency."  He  also  tells  how  the  three 
bishops  stood  on  the  first  question,  and  by  implication  the  last 
as  well:  "We  have  three  bishops;  one  of  them  [M'Kendree]  says 
the  giving  of  power  to  the  Annual  Conferences  in  the  choice  of 
presiding  elders  is  unconstitutional.  A  second  [George]  says  it  is 
not;  and  a  third  [Roberts]  used  the  term  without  any  precise 
technical  meaning.  He  grants  that  the  change  will  take  from 
the  episcopacy  some  of  its  former  power,  but  he  is  willing  to  part 
with  it.  Of  course  he  believes  there  is  nothing  in  the  restrictions 
to  prevent  the  Annual  Conferences  from  electing  presiding  elders. 
The  discipline  does  not  guarantee  to  the  bishops  the  power  of 
appointing  the  presiding  elders.  The  zeal  and  perseverance  of 
the  first  bishop,  it  seems,  were  thought  to  be  worthy  of  a  vote 
of  thanks,  which,  it  is  said,  was  accordingly  given  by  an  Annual 
Conference.  It  becomes  a  question  whether  there  is  any  appear- 
ance of  evil  in  this  transaction.    Though  it  is  a  matter  of  some 


4 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


delicacy  to  say  in  what  degree,  if  any,  it  betrays  an  appearance 
of  want  of  wisdom  and  candor.  Neither  the  bishop  himself,  nor 
anybody  else,  ever  pretended  to  show  a  single  letter  of  authority. 
Their  constitution  is  only  implied  or  inferred;  that  is,  it  is  a 
matter  of  opinion.  The  opinions  of  the  bishops  as  well  as  the 
preachers  differ,  and  a  conference  who  coincide  with  one  of  them 
in  opinion  give  him  a  vote  of  thanks  for  thinking  as  they  do. 
Does  not  this  look  very  much  like  a  vote  of  no  thanks  to  those 
who  dared  to  think  for  themselves,  though  their  way  of  thinking 
went  to  take  power  out  of  their  own  hands?" 

Bishop  M'Kendree  in  his  Address  gave  his  own  decisive 
opinion,  and  it  became  the  cue  for  those  who  ranged  themselves 
with  the  minority.  That  the  Bishop's  expression  of  opinion  was 
intended  to  forestall  legislation  there  can  be  no  doubt.  This  is 
his  dictum :  "  The  General  Conference  of  1808,  satisfied  with  the 
principles  and  utilities  of  the  system,  constituted  a  delegated 
Conference,  and  by  constitutional  restrictions  ratified  and  per- 
petuated our  system  of  doctrines  and  discipline,  and  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  all  the  preachers  and  members ;  in  a  word,  all 
the  essential  parts  of  the  system  of  government.  It  is  presumed 
that  no  radical  change  can  be  made  for  the  better  at  present." 
Again :  "  Among  so  many,  should  some,  for  purposes  of  profit,  or 
ease,  or  honor,  require,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  an  injurious  change 
in  our  well-tried  and  approved  system  of  government,  their  mis- 
guided wishes,  it  is  hoped,  will  be  overruled  by  your  wisdom  and 
prudence,  to  whose  patronage  this  invaluable  treasure  is  so  con- 
fidently committed."^  He  knew  full  well  that  shields  of  the 
mighty  would  be  locked  in  the  polemical  fray  soon  to  occupy  the 
Conference.  He  knew  the  divergent  opinions  of  his  colleagues. 
He  knew  that  when  the  body  came  to  "  strengthen  the  episcopacy  " 
at  his  request,  it  was  important  that  his  own  choice  should  be 
the  choice  of  the  Conference,  and  thus  settle  in  his  favor  the 
contest,  now  joined  between  the  constitutionalists  and  the  anti- 
constitutionalists  over  the  enactment  of  1808.  He  knew  that  the 
full  weight  of  his  episcopal  power  and  patronage  must  be  thrown 
into  the  scale  for  Soule,  who  reserved  his  strength  for  the  final 
tussle,  well  advised  no  doubt  by  M'Kendree  of  the  policy  they 
would  mutually  pursue.  He  knew  full  well  that  stigmatization, 
when  pronounced  by  authority,  is  a  weapon  most  effective,  and 
hence  his  unseemly  imputation  of  motive, —  "for  purposes  of 
profit,  or  ease,  or  honor,"  as  instigating  "their  misguided  wishes." 

1  Paine's  "  Life  of  M'Kendree,"  pp.  292-300,  for  the  fuU  Address. 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1820 


5 


In  this,  however,  he  only  followed  his  exemplar,  Asbury,  who 
dealt  in  stronger  imputation  of  0^ Kelly's  motives,  as  already 
cited.  The  reading  of  it  in  M'Kendree's  Address  must  have 
stung  to  the  quick  the  large  majority,  who  listened  to  it  in 
silence,  but  unawed  as  to  their  purpose.  Before  passing  from 
this  Address,  a  reference  in  the  conclusion  of  it  must  be  cited 
for  future  use:  "The  'Life  of  Bishop  Asbury,'  which  in  conse- 
quence of  affliction  and  a  press  of  business  was  not  presented  to 
the  last  General  Conference,  is  now  in  a  state  of  forwardness,  and 
is  recommended  to  your  patronage."  M'Kendree  having  found 
it  impossible  to  prepare  it,  the  Baltimore  Conference  engaged 
Dr.  Samuel  K.  Jennings  to  write  it,  and  a  hundred  or  more  pages 
were  completed  at  that  time.  The  Bishop's  thorough  indorse- 
ment of  him  and  the  work  by  this  reference  is  to  be  noted. 

Passing  incidental  business  of  the  Conference  for  the  first  week, 
during  which  time  the  respective  forces  were  caucusing  and  pre- 
paring for  the  fray  on  the  elective  presiding  elder  question,  it  was 
introduced  early  in  the  second  week  by  T.  Merritt  of  New  Eng- 
land and  Beverly  Waugh  of  Maryland,  proposing  that  the  answer 
to  the  question,  "  By  whom  are  the  Presiding  Elders  to  be  chosen?  " 
be,  "  By  the  Conference."  It  was  discussed  for  two  days,  twenty- 
one  speaking,  thirteen  of  them  in  favor.  Ezekiel  Cooper,  one  of 
the  affirmative,  now  moved  that  it  lie  on  the  table,  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  forward  a  motion  which  he  believed  would  accommo- 
date both  parties.  It  was  that  the  bishops  should  nominate  three 
times  the  number  of  presiding  elders  to  be  elected,  out  of  which 
number  the  Conference  should  elect.  Considerable  debate  ensued 
upon  it,  when  William  Capers  and  Nathan  Bangs  moved  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  committee  of  three  from  each  side  to  confer  with 
the  bishops  on  the  subject.  George  was  in  the  chair,  and  ap- 
pointed Ezekiel  Cooper,  John  Emory,  and  Nathan  Bangs  for  the 
alteration,  and  S.  G.  Koszel,  Joshua  Wells,  and  William  Capers 
for  the  present  form.  They  met  the  bishops,  but  without  result, 
and  another  meeting  was  appointed  for  the  next  morning.  This 
meeting  was  not  attended  by  either  Emory  or  Cooper,  and  nothing 
was  done.  Why  did  they  not  attend?  No  explanation  is  given, 
so  it  is  open  to  conjecture,  and  it  is  that  the  arbitrary  stand  of 
M'Kendree  forbade  self-respecting  men  to  take  the  risk  of  a  second 
rebuff.  At  noon  of  the  next  day  Bishop  George  requested  the 
committee  to  meet  him  in  the  gallery  of  the  church,  and,  after 
some  explanations  as  to  the  bearing  of  the  accommodation  plan, 
he  pronounced  himself  as  in  its  favor.    On  it  the  committee 


6 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFOEM 


united,  the  report  being  written  by  John  Emory.  ^  It  was  brought 
forward  at  the  afternoon  session,  and  passed  by  a  vote  of  sixty- 
one  to  twenty-five,  or  more  than  two-thirds.  The  report  as  passed 
also  included  the  decision,  "  that  the  presiding  elders  be,  and  are 
hereby  made,  the  advisory  council  of  the  bishop  or  president  of 
the  Conference  in  stationing  the  preachers."  While  the  matter 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  committee,  or  on  the  9th  of  May,  action 
was  taken  on  the  Bishop's  Address  as  to  strengthening  the  epis- 
copacy, and  it  was  resolved  that  "  it  is  expedient  that  one  addi- 
tional General  Superintendent  be  elected  and  ordained  by  this 
General  Conference."  On  the  13th  the  election  took  place,  there 
being  only  one  member  of  the  body  absent,  so  that  on  counting 
the  votes  eighty-eight  were  reported,  of  which  number  Joshua 
Soule  received  forty-seven  and  Xathan  Bangs  thirty-eight,  with 
three  scattering  votes.    Soule  was  declared  elected. 

Taking  up  the  action  on  the  eldership  where  it  was  left,  the 
Journal  of  the  Conference  shows  that  immediately  thereafter 
Soule  obtained  leave  of  absence.  The  issue  was  joined.  Did 
he  consult  M'Kendree?  Who  can  doubt  it?  Their  concert  of 
action  is  proof.  In  this  interval  he  prepared  and  delivered  to 
Bishops  George  and  Roberts  the  notable  letter  in  which  he  made 
issue  with  the  General  Conference.  It  may  be  found  in  full  in 
Tigert's  "History,"  p.  340.  Three  of  its  sentences  are  italicized, 
whether  by  the  Bishop  elect  or  Dr.  Tigert  he  does  not  record,  but 
they  are  enough  to  give  the  gist  of  it.  After  the  opening  sen- 
tence, "In  consequence  of  an  act  of  the  General  Conference 
passed  this  day,  in  which  I  conceive  the  constitution  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  violated,  ...  I  cannot  consist- 
ently with  my  convictions  of  propriety  and  obligation  enter  upon 
the  work  of  an  itinerant  General  Superintendent.  ...  I  was 
elected  under  the  constitution  and  government  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  unimpaired.  ...  I  solemnly  declare,  and 
could  appeal  to  the  Searcher  of  hearts  for  the  sincerity  of  my 
intentions,  that  I  cannot  act  as  Superintendent  under  the  rules 
this  day  made  and  established  by  the  General  Conference." 
Tigert  says,  "  This  act  of  the  Bishop  elect  was  prompt  and  de- 
cisive. The  question  was  not  new  to  him."  This  is  true.  He 
spoke  from  the  vantage-ground  as  the  acknowledged  author  of 
the  restrictive  articles  of  1808,  and  specially  that  which  forbade 

1  Dr.  Buckley,  in  the  "  History  of  Methodism,"  Vol.  I.  p.  4^1,  says  that  this 
report  was  signed  by  Cooper,  Roszel,  Bangs,  "Wells,  Emory,  and  Capers,  the  entire 
committee. 


SOULE  ELECTED  BISHOP  —  ELECTIVE  ELDER SUIP  7 


the  General  Conference  "  to  change  or  alter  any  part  or  rule  of 
our  government,  so  as  to  do  away  episcopacy,  or  destroy  the  plan 
of  our  itinerant  general  superintendency."  True,  also,  that  many 
who  voted  for  the  restrictions  never  dreamed  that  it  was  a  Mede 
and  Persian  regulation,  and  that  covertly  this  very  elective  pre- 
siding eldership  was  to  be  forestalled  by  it,  so  that  when  Soule's 
letter  was  read  to  the  Conference,  claiming  for  himself  the  right 
to  interpret  the  law  as  well  according  to  the  mental  reserves  of 
Asbury,  M'Kendree,  and  himself,  great  was  the  astonishment  and 
the  indignation  of  not  a  few  of  the  large  majority.  Before  his 
letter  was  read  to  the  Conference,  the  bishops  held  a  consultation 
over  it.  Snethen  has  already  given  their  diverse  views,  so  the 
result  of  their  interview  only  need  be  cited,  which  was  that  they 
would  proceed  with  the  ordination,  M'Kendree  to  report  to  the 
Conference  their  views  of  the  question  raised  by  Soule.  Two 
days  after  his  election  accordingly,  M'Kendree  presented  Soule's 
letter  tq  the  Conference,  and  also  read  one  from  himself,  the  gist 
of  which  is  in  these  sentences :  "  I  extremely  regret  that  you  have, 
by  this  measure,  reduced  me  to  the  painful  necessity  of  pro- 
nouncing the  resolution  unconstitutional,  and  therefore  without 
the  proper  authority  of  the  Church.  ...  I  enter  this  protest." 
It  had  been  fondly  hoped  since  1808  by  the  liberal  sentiment  of 
the  preachers  that  the  restrictive  articles,  whether  accepted  as  a 
Constitution  or  not,  did  away  with  the  former  power  of  veto  of 
the  bishops,  and  this  view  received  encouragement  by  the  course 
of  the  bishops  themselves,  who  from  that  time  ceased  to  partici- 
pate in  debate,  made  no  motion,  and  abstained  from  voting. 
Judge  their  astonishment  as  well  as  indignation  to  hear  this 
resumption  of  it  by  the  senior  Bishop, — he  pronounced  it  uncon- 
stitutional and  destitute  of  authority. 

The  ordination  of  Soule  had  been  set  by  the  bishops  for  Wednes- 
day, May  24,  at  11  o'clock  a.m.,  whereupon  the  majority,  unin- 
timidated  by  this  show  of  authority  and  menace  of  power,  held 
a  caucus  and  determined  to  arrest  his  ordination.  Capers,  in  his 
manuscript  account  of  the  action,  as  cited  by  Paine,  complains : 
"  Those  in  favor  of  a  change  took  exceptions  to  [M'Kendree  and 
Soule's  letters],  held  a  caucus  without  consulting  those  not  in 
favor  of  the  change,  and  determined  to  arrest  the  ordination  of 
J.  Soule."  D.  Ostrander  and  James  Smith  deserve  to  be  em- 
balmed as  the  authors  of  the  resolution,  which  recites  in  substance 
that  inasmuch  as  the  Bishop  elect  had  notified  them  that  he  would 
not  be  bound  by  the  Conference  action,  that  "the  Bishops  be 


8 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


earnestly  requested  by  this  Conterence  to  defer  or  postpone  the 
ordination  of  the  said  Joshua  Soule  until  he  gives  satisfactory 
explanations  to  this  Conference."  Tigert  speaks  of  the  "manly 
dignity  "  of  Soule,  and  quotes  from  Stevens  his  "  dignified  car- 
riage as  at  times  verging  on  majesty."  It  may  be  conceded,  but 
it  is  opined,  that  the  reader  will  see  in  this  revolution  of  Ostrander 
and  Smith  a  manly  dignity  quite  equal  to  any  exhibition  Soule 
ever  made.  Meantime  it  seems  that  the  minority  had  also  gotten 
together  and  agreed  upon  a  line  of  proceeding,  as  they  could 
caucus  as  well,  so  that,  while  the  resolution  was  debating,  Soule 
and  others  complained  that  it  did  not  fairly  represent  him.  True, 
it  was  blunt,  but  the  objection  was  a  quibble.  Finally  it  was 
withdrawn.  Then  a  motion  was  made  to  reconsider  the  action  of 
the  Conference  on  the  presiding-elder  question.  It  was  lost, 
whereupon  Nelson  Reed  suggested  that  they  proceed  at  once  to 
the  ordination  of  Soule,  as  the  time  set  had  come.  At  this 
juncture,  Tigert  finds  Soule's  manly  dignity,  when  he  rose  and 
requested  the  Conference  by  vote  to  postpone  it,  but  it  was  not 
concurred  in  —  the  manly  dignity  of  the  Conference  was  aroused 
to  a  high  pitch.  The  debate  went  on,  shields  were  locked,  timid 
or  disgusted  men  left  the  Conference  room,  until  it  was  discovered 
by  the  presiding  Bishop  George,  willing  to  find  some  way  out  of 
the  imminent  crisis,  that  there  was  not  a  two-thirds  vote  present 
for  business;  he  rose  "and  announced  that  the  episcopacy  had 
deferred  the  ordination,  and  the  Conference  adjourned." 

The  next  morning  all  were  present  but  five,  E-oberts  in  the 
chair,  and  the  motion  was  finally  taken  by  ballot,  and  resulted  in 
a  tie,  forty-three  to  forty -three;  the  chair  refused  to  vote,  and 
pronounced  it  lost.  The  next  day  Bishop  George  again  announced 
the  ordination  for  12  o'clock,  whereupon  Soule  presented  a  letter, 
in  which  he  stated  his  resignation  of  the  office  of  Bishop.  It  was 
laid  on  the  table.  At  the  next  session  he  pressed  it,  but  no  action 
was  taken.  The  case  was  apparently  lost  for  an  unlimited  and 
irresponsible  episcopacy,  the  General  Conference  declaring  it- 
self supreme  in  its  opinion,  as  set  over  against  that  of  M 'Ken- 
dree  and  Soule,  that  an  Elective  Presiding  Eldership  was 
not  an  infringement  of  the  restrictive  articles,  granting  the 
bishops  their  full  claim  of  being  conscientious  as  to  its  being  a 
violation. 

The  situation  was  desperate  and  called  for  desperate  measures 
by  the  episcopacy  and  its  adherents.  It  developed  in  a  piece  of 
political  strategy  worthy  the  finesse  of  accomplished  lobbyists. 


BISHOPS  PROTEST —  THE  ISSUE  JOINED 


9 


It  has  never  come  to  light  who  were  the  conceivers  and  exec- 
utors of  it,  but  the  fact  is  known  that  during  the  next  twenty- 
four  hours,  an  evening  and  a  night  being  included,  as  answering 
well  such  work,  a  paper  was  carried  round  to  the  members,  favor- 
able and  doubtful  and  weak-hearted,  asking  signatures  to  an 
agreement  to  vote  the  next  day  for  a  "  suspension  "  of  the  "  con- 
ciliatory resolutions,"  as  those  on  the  eldership  were  called,  inas- 
much as  the  friends  of  the  measure  had  conceded  everything  they 
could  by  yielding  the  nomination  to  the  episcopacy  of  the  men 
who  were  to  be  elders,  and  in  the  cabinet  of  the  bishops.  Forty- 
five  signers  were  secured,  a  bare  majority  of  the  Conference. 
Who  can  tell  what  arguments  of  patronage  and  what  menaces  of 
power  were  used  by  these  dark-lantern  manipulators?  Snethen's 
comment  upon  this  transaction  is  mildly  expressed  but  trenchantly 
keen.  He  had  retired  to  his  country  home  before  it  had  occurred. 
He  says,  "  We  were  not  present  when  the  protest  [if  we  may  call 
it  so]  against  the  conciliation  was  entered.  Having  witnessed 
that  interesting  scene  [the  vote  of  a  large  majority  in  favor  of  the 
conciliation  plan]  we  left  the  Conference  with  joyful  emotions  of 
heart."  Two  years  subsequently,  in  the  first  of  the  numerous 
articles  he  wrote  for  the  Wesleyan  Repository,  he  said  of  it,  "  No 
man  ought  to  be  questioned  for  anything  he  says  in  a  hall  of 
legislation;  but  when  men  legislate  out  of  doors,  they  place 
themselves  within  the  reach  of  animadversion.  The  vote  to 
reconsider  the  plan  of  conciliation  came  to  a  tie,  yet  after  several 
of  the  members  had  left  the  Conference  a  paper  was  taken  round 
among  the  members,  and  forty-five  signers  were  engaged,  and 
pledged  to  vote  for  a  suspension  of  the  rule  for  four  years.  The 
principal  mover  of  the  measure  declared  the  fact  before  the  Con- 
ference, in  defiance  of  argument,  etc."  The  finesse  of  the  transac- 
tion is  seen  in  part  from  the  fact  that  it  called  only  for  a  suspension 
for  four  years,  and  for  that  this  dark-lantern  method  secured  the 
actual  signatures  of  the  members ;  first,  that  there  might  be  no 
hedging  by  them,  and,  second,  that  the  evidence  of  their  partici- 
pation might  be  submitted  to  M'Kendree  in  proof  of  their  fealty. 
The  next  morning,  May  26,  the  motion  to  suspend  was  introduced. 
It  was  warmly  debated,  despite  the  unblushing  avowal  that  forty- 
five  names  were  appended  to  it,  S.  G.  Eoszel  acting  as  spokesman 
and  tactician,  as  he  was  probably  the  active  agent  in  the  outdoor 
work  through  the  night.  Griffith,  Hedding  and  Bangs  took  part. 
Late  in  the  afternoon  it  was  carried  by  a  vote  of  forty-five  in  favor 
and  thirty-five  against.   Thus  it  is  seen  that  not  a  single  vote  was 


10 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


gained  for  it  by  the  day's  debate,  while  thirty-five,  probably  all 
who  remained  in  attendance,  unflinchingly  voted  against  it,  nine 
of  the  members  having  gone  home  or  declined  to  attend  the  ses- 
sion. The  large  majority  was  now  a  hopeless  minority.  The 
cause  was  lost  —  it  will  be  seen,  irrevocably. 

The  remaining  steps  may  be  briefly  summarized.  Soule's 
resignation  was  before  the  Conference  as  unfinished  business. 
Roszel  and  Hodges  moved  that  he  be  requested  to  withdraw  it 
and  "  comply  with  the  wishes  of  his  brethren  in  submitting  to  be 
ordained."  It  was  carried  by  a  vote  of  forty -nine  in  favor,  the 
negative  not  stated;  four  weaklings  went  over  to  the  forty-five. 
Thus  the  way  seemed  to  open  for  the  complete  triumph  of  the 
M'Kendree  party,  but,  as  Tigert  gives  the  cue,  "the  bishop  elect 
had  been  attacked  in  different  ways,  and  sorely  pressed,"  and  he 
still  insisted  on  his  resignation,  and  it  was  accepted.  Capers 
says,  however,  "  that  it  was  not  done  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  Con- 
ference, but  announced  from  the  chair  that  it  was  accepted." 
(See  Tigert,  p.  347.)  Alexander  McCaine,  acting  as  Secretary 
to  the  body  and  intimate  with  all  the  members,  throws  some  light 
upon  an  occult  reason  for  Soule's  resignation;  the  large  minority 
vote  on  his  election  was  an  intense  one,  and  they  availed  of  every 
opportunity  to  defeat  his  ordination  afterward.  Let  McCaine 
explain :  "  But  why  were  the  preachers  who  best  know  Mr.  Soule 
so  strongly  opposed  to  his  ordination?  There  is  no  instance  of 
such  stern  opposition  being  made  to  the  ordination  of  any  other 
Methodist  bishop.  Simply  because  Joshua  Soule  was  a  despot. 
Now  it  matters  not  a  straw  with  us,  whether  this  statement  be 
controverted  by  Mr.  Soule,  or  any  of  his  friends,  on  the  ground 
that  'despot'  was  not  the  term  that  was  used.  We  believe  it 
was  the  very  term;  but  whether  it  was  despot  or  tyrant,  it  is  all 
the  same  in  our  estimation,  as  the  ground  of  opposition  was  an 
overbearing,  despotic,  tyrannical  disposition.  Perhaps  his  brother 
bishop,  Elijah  Hedding,  recollects  the  expression  or  expressions 
used  when  stating  his  reasons  for  opposing  the  ordination  of 
Mr.  Soule.  That  there  was  an  opposition  —  a  strong,  intense, 
and  unparalleled  opposition  —  we  i)resume  Mr.  Soule  himself  will 
not  deny.  This  being  the  case,  it  will  show  that  there  were  other 
reasons  for  his  declination  to  be  ordained  than  that  which  he,  or 
some  of  his  friends  for  him,  have  asserted:  the  action  of  the 
General  Conference  on  the  Presiding  Elder  question.  These  pro- 
ceedings will  do  more  than  this;  they  will  show  that  the  charge 
of  despotism  has  not  originated  with  the  author  of  these  sketches, 


A  TWO-THIRDS  MAJORITY  DEFEATED  11 


but  with  the  men  who  were  well  acquainted  with  him,  etc."  ^  It 
may  be  well  to  observe,  in  passing,  that  McCaine  as  a  writer  did 
not  mince  his  words,  but,  as  he  in  this  instance  proves,  the  harsh- 
est terms  employed  by  him,  and  for  which  his  writings  were  in 
1827-30  condemned,  and  himself  made  an  exception  to  the 
amnesty  proposed  by  the  General  Conference  of  1828  to  the 
Reformers,  were  terms  he  learned  from  the  lips  of  Cooper, 
Griffith,  Bangs,  Emory,  and  others  in  the  open  debates  and  pri- 
vate conversations  of  these  times.  But  there  is  a  difference  when 
Hedding  denounces  Soule  as  a  despot  in  1820,  and  McCaine  does 
the  same  of  him  and  others  in  1827-30,  as  shall  be  shown.  Soule 
was  both  conscientious  and  consistent  in  his  stand  as  compared 
with  his  position  in  1808.  His  honesty  cannot  and  need  not  be 
impeached.  He  maintained  his  consistency  in  all  his  after 
career;  and  before  marshalling  the  issues  of  this  decisive  contest 
of  1820,  the  concluding  legislative  action  of  that  Conference  may 
be  noted. 

Early  in  the  Eldership-Soule  debate,  on  motion  he  was  voted 
^1000  extra  compensation  for  his  services  as  Book  Agent  in 
New  York.  The  vote  was  not  explained  with  satisfaction. 
Tigert  furnishes  a  number  of  letters  written  by  Soule  dur- 
ing the  Conference  to  the  bishops,  defining  and  justifying  his 
position,  and  those  who  wish  to  read  all  that  he  has  said  are 
referred  to  them.  May  27,  after  Bishop  George  had  intimated 
that  the  election  of  another  Bishop  was  a  necessity,  Wells  and 
Capers  moved  to  go  into  an  election,  but  it  was  withdrawn,  after 
information  had  been  given  by  the  bishops  that  a  Protest  ^  against 
entering  into  another  election,  signed  by  thirty  members  of  the 
New  York,  New  England,  Genesee,  Philadelphia,  and  other  Con- 
ferences was  in  their  hands.  Roszel  having  affirmed  that  they 
would  have  no  one  but  Soule,  it  was  feared  by  the  now  defeated 
friends  of  an  elective  eldership  that  such  an  election  would  only 
result  in  a  reelection  of  Soule,  and  this  they  determined  to  defeat 
at  all  hazards.^  In  the  emergency  George  and  Roberts  agreed  to  do 

1  Letters.   Boston.   8vo.   206  pp.  1850. 

2  Among  the  reasons  assigned  in  this  Protest  is  the  following :  "  They  also 
complain  of  the  majority  for  the  manner  in  which  they  secured  the  suspension  of 
the  Presiding  Elder  resolutions  '  on  yesterday  by  obtaining  the  signatures  of  said 
majority,'  and  that  now  they  are  so  leagued  together  that  they  can  and  will  carry 
any  measure  they  choose,  however  obnoxious  to  the  feelings  and  views  of  the 
minority.  They  therefore  say  we  most  earnestly  wish  the  present  session  to  come 
to  a  close."    Paine's  "  Life  of  M'Kendree." 

3  McCaine  gives  some  farther  facts  in  evidence.  "When  it  was  officially  an- 
nounced that  Joshua  Soule  was  elected  to  the  office  of  Bishop,  the  preachers  who 


12 


HISTORY  OF  METUODIST  REFOEM 


the  work  with  M'Kendree  as  far  as  he  would  be  physically  able, 
until  the  next  General  Conference,  and  so  ended  the  question. 

The  law  allowing  the  Annual  Conferences  to  "  form  their  own 
regulations  about  buying  and  selling  slaves  "  was  rescinded.  John 
Emory  was  appointed  a  delegate  to  the  English  Conference  to 
settle  the  Canada  differences.    His  abilities  as  a  stanch  advocate 
of  the  Elective  Eldership,  and  his  rising  reputation  generally, 
brought  from  the  Episcopal  party  this  first  suggestive  promotion. 
What  came  of  this  visit  has  been  considered  in  the  first  volume. 
On  the  last  day  of  the  Conference  it  was  discovered  that  the  re- 
strictive articles  of  1808  were  defective  in  that  they  made  no  pro- 
vision to  pass  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the  acts  of  a  General 
Conference.    Did  Soule  overlook  it?    The  presumption  must  be 
that  he  did  not,  for  consistency  in  his  general  position  delegated 
to  the  bishops  a  veto  power  over  the  acts  of  the  General  Con- 
ference as  the  interpreters  of  laws,  and  called  for  no  provision  by 
which  they  could  be  overruled.    It  was  his  idea  of  an  episcopacy, 
akin  to  that  of  Asbury  and  M'Kendree.    The  Conference,  how- 
ever, was  alarmed  on  this  discovery  and  passed  a  resolution 
advising  the  several  Annual  Conferences  to  authorize  the  ensuing 
General  Conference  to  enact  a  law  that  when  an  action  of  it  shall 
be  pronounced  unconstitutional  by  the  bishops,  they  shall  return 
it  to  the  body  within  three  days,  and  if  it  then  pass  by  a  two- 
thirds  vote,  it  shall  be  valid  despite  the  objection  of  the  bishops. 
By  a  majority  vote  it  was  a  tentative  agreement  to  a  veto  power 
of  the  bishops.    What  came  of  it  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

were  best  acquainted  with  him  determined  to  defeat  his  ordination.  Whether 
they  met  in  caucus  to  consult  how  they  could  most  easily  and  certainly  effect 
their  purpose,  we  are  not  able  to  say,  but  we  have  been  told  that  their  first  plan 
was  to  come  in  a  body  into  the  church  when  the  officiating  Bishop  was  about  to 
commence  the  services,  and  protest  against  his  ordination.  Why  this  plan  was 
abandoned  to  make  way  for  another,  we  know  not.  We  do  know  that  their  sec- 
ond plan  was  to  reduce  the  General  Conference  below  the  constitutional  number 
necessary  to  give  validity  to  its  proceedings,  which  is  '  two-thirds.'  For  this  pur- 
pose, as  the  hour  (12  m.)  approached,  one  after  another  of  those  preachers  who 
were  opposed  to  his  ordination  would  go  out,  until  at  last,  '  seven  minutes  before 
twelve,'  when  Mr.  Sias  was  speaking,  it  was  ascertained  there  was  not  a  quo- 
rum. Bisliop  George  then  announced,  '  The  ordination  is  postponed  to  some  future 
time.'  "  This  account  bears  every  sign  of  verisimilitude,  not  only  in  the  caution 
of  McCaine  in  not  affirming  beyond  his  positive  knowledge,  but  in  that  the  facts 
.stated  are  found  to  quadrate  perfectly  with  those  already  given  by  Paine  and 
Tigert.  Was  Bishop  George  a  party  to  it?  It  seems  probable  in  that  as  an  advo- 
cate of  the  Elective  Eldership,  Cooper,  and  not  Soule,  must  have  been  his  prefer- 
ence, and  in  that  he  must  have  observed  from  the  chair  the  diminishing  number 
of  members  present,  and  his  quick  avail  to  postpone  on  the  no-quorum  excuse. 
Sea  "Letters  on  M.  E.  Church,"  Boston,  1850,  p.  109. 


THREE  THINGS  LOGICALLY  ESTABLISHED  13 


Three  things  were  incontestably  established  by  the  final  action 
of  this  General  Conference.  First,  that  the  bishopric  was  an 
order  and  not  an  office  merely;  that  it  was  a  life  tenure,  and 
carried  with  it  such  an  interpretation  of  the  restrictive  arti- 
cles as  made  it  impossible  for  any  succeeding  body  to  change 
either  the  statutory  or  traditional  regulations  of  Asbury  and 
M'Kendree,  as  to  its  powers ;  that  the  Bishop  was  not  open  to 
impeachment  except  for  immorality,  and  was  practically  un- 
amenable to  any  one  but  himself.  The  General  Conferences  of 
1824,  1828  settled  these  concessions  even  more  fully,  so  that  from 
this  period  onward  the  theory  was  taught  and  acted  upon  in  the 
undivided  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  down  to  1844.  Then  the 
delegates  from  the  North  and  West,  finding  that  they  could  make 
no  case  on  which  to  demand  the  suspension  or  resignation  of 
Bishop  Andrew  as  a  "General  Superintendent,"  by  reason  of  his 
unpopularity  in  those  sections  in  that  he  was  a  slaveholder,  hav- 
ing come  to  the  relation  by  a  marriage  which  entailed  upon  him 
such  property,  which  by  the  laws  of  the  state  in  which  he  and 
they  lived  could  not  be  made  free,  abandoned  the  ground  of 
Asbury  and  M'Kendree,  and  took  the  position,  until  then  entirely 
new,  except  as  held  by  a  minority  largely  in  the  silence  of  sub- 
mission, that  the  bishopric  was  not  an  order,  but  an  office  simply; 
and  they  claimed  for  the  General  Conference  the  sovereignty  which 
it  was  all  along  held  had  been  vested  in  the  restrictive  articles  of 
1808,  and  that  of  consequence  it  was  competent  for  it  to  suspend 
or  depose  a  Bishop  who  refused  to  resign,  on  high  grounds  of  expe- 
diency such  as  appeared  in  the  case  of  Andrew.  Its  ultimate  will 
be  seen  when  the  division  of  1844  has  been  reached  and  considered. 
It  was  entirely  consistent  with  Wesley's  idea  and  purpose  in  the 
appointment  of  General  Superintendents,  and  therefore  the  true 
Wesleyan  system;  but  it  was  inconsistent  with  the  hierarchic 
system  of  which  Coke,  Asbury,  M'Kendree,  and  Soule  were  the 
fathers  and  exponents.  Logical  necessity  therefore  compelled 
Soule  in  1844  to  unite  his  fortunes  with  the  South,  and  has  held 
it  ever  since  in  the  hierarchic  toils,  waiting  some  future  day  of 
redemption,  while  it  also  led  the  North  to  such  finalities  of 
action  in  delimiting  the  bishopric  as  has  been  already  exhibited 
in  the  first  volum^. 

Second,  the  action  of  this  General  Conference  for  the  time  de- 
termined the  supremacy  of  a  Bishop  over  it,  irrespective  of  two- 
thirds  majority  or  unanimous  votes.  Let  it  not  startle  the  con- 
servative reader,  —  it  is  not  a  coinage  of  the  writer.    Dr.  J ohn 


14 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Emory  must  be  given  the  credit  of  it  as  another  epigram  in 
reform  literature.  When  M'Kendree,  in  his  address  to  the 
Baltimore  Conference  in  1822,  plead  for  their  adoption  of  a  reso- 
lution approving  the  suspension  of  the  conciliatory  paper  of  1820, 
as  required  by  the  constitution,  it  so  aroused  Emory,  that  "jus- 
tice to  himself  and  the  cause  which  he  espoused  demanded  that 
he  should  expose  what  he  considered  its  fallacies,"  and  he  did  it 
in  so  masterful  a  manner  that  the  Bishop's  request  was  "  in- 
definitely postponed  by  a  large  vote."  See  Robert's  Life  of  his 
father,  p.  148,  following  the  father's  statement  on  p.  147:  "In 
the  estimation  of  the  advocates  of  an  elective  presiding  eldership, 
the  question  now  merged  in  the  more  important  one  whether  the 
episcopacy  or  the  General  Conference  was  to  be  supreme."  The 
reader,  on  a  calm  review  of  the  proceedings,  will  determine  the 
question  for  himself;  it  need  not  be  more  firmly  established  by 
the  writer. 

Third,  the  action  of  this  General  Conference  was  a  demonstra- 
tion that  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  reform  from  within  in  a  hier- 
archic system.  In  this,  history  has  many  times  repeated  itself. 
Snethen,  one  of  the  most  buoyant  and  charitable  of  men,  review- 
ing calmly  the  situation  and  the  opinions  entertained  as  to  the 
emergency,  says :  "  The  common  opinion  was,  the  plan  works  well 
enough  [the  Asbury-M'Kendree  plan],  and  it  will  be  time  enough 
to  correct  the  evils  when  they  happen,  if  they  ever  do.  Xo  fears 
were  entertained  of  consequences.  Now  I  too  was  (as  they  said) 
for  letting  well  enough  alone,  ^  wanting  no  remedy  for  well 
enough,  but  to  provide  for  bad  enough;  because  none  had  been 
provided,  and  when  it  should  come,  the  remedy  would  be  too  late. 
The  notion,  as  I  conceived,  that  a  government  so  constructed 
might  be  reformed,  has  no  foundation  in  science.  A  carriage 
which  has  no  brake  upon  its  wheels,  when  descending  a  hill  can- 
not be  stopped  to  provide  one;  but  its  motion  must  grow  more 
rapid  as  it  runs."  How  apt  the  illustration,  and  how  verified 
the  fact!  A  parallel  from  history  obtrudes  itself,  as  given  by 
D'Aubigne,  so  pertinent  that  it  will  not  down.  He  says  in  sub- 
stance, the  Council  of  Constance  is  an  example  of  the  futility  of 
Eeform  from  within  the  erring  Church.  It  was  assembled  at  the 
call  for  Reformation  on  all  sides.  Never  convened  a  more  august 
conclave  of  Romish  officials.  There  were  eighteen  hundred  doc- 
tors of  divinity  and  priests,  with  an  immense  number  of  cardinals, 
archbishops,  bishops;  the  Emperor  himself,  with  a  retinue  of  a 
1  See  his  "  Replies  to  O'Kelly,"  so  far  as  he  was  the  author. 


NO  REFORM  FROM  WITHIN  A  HIERARCHY 


15 


thousand  attendants,  and  other  civil  dignitaries  and  ambassadors 
from  all  nations  composed  an  authoritative  assembly  unprece- 
dented in  the  history  of  Christianity.    Everything  bowed  before 
it  as  it  deposed  three  rival  popes  at  once,  and  at  the  same  time 
delivered  John  Huss  to  the  flames.    A  commission  was  formed 
to  propose  a  fundamental  Reform.    The  Council  was  unanimously 
supported  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund.    The  cardinals  all  took  an 
oath  that  he  among  them  who  should  be  elected  Pope  would  not 
dissolve  the  Assembly  nor  leave  Constance  before  the  desired 
reformation  should  be  accomplished.    Colonna  was  chosen,  under 
the  title  of  Martin  V.    So  soon  as  he  had  placed  the  tiara  on  his 
head,  he  exclaimed,  "  The  Council  is  at  an  end!  "    Sigismund  and 
the  Council  uttered  a  cry  of  distress  and  indignation,  but  it  was 
lost  upon  the  wind.    Martin  ordered  a  coronation  procession  to 
be  formed  of  the  Assembly,  and  rode  through  the  streets  of  Con- 
stance with  the  highest  in  civil  authority  holding  the  bridle  of  his 
horse  and  all  obsequiously  bowing  before  him.    With  the  admis- 
sion that  it  is  comparing  small  things  with  great,  the  parallel 
holds.    The  General  Conference  of  1820  assembled  with  a  two- 
thirds  majority  bent  upon  a  great  Reform.    There  were  twenty- 
eight  out  of  the  fifty-eight  presiding  elders  elected  to  it,  but  a 
number  of  these  were  known  to  be  favorable  to  the  Reform.  Its 
purpose  had  been  maturing  for  four  years  and  was  backed  by  the 
laity  of  the  Church.    Assembled,  it  proceeded  to  its  object  despite 
all  murmurings  and  menaces,  and,  when  it  was  accomplished 
amid  general  rejoicing  and  the  retirement  of  some  of  the  delegates 
to  their  homes,  the  Bishop  elect,  Soule,  uttered  his  "veto,"  and 
before  adjournment  finally  had  the  Conference  at  his  feet.  His 
interpretation  prevailed  over  two-thirds  of  the  episcopacy  and 
two-thirds  of  the  Conference,  the  senior  Bishop  fully  indorsing 
the  junior.    At  the  best  their  view  was  nothing  but  an  official 
opinion,  and  "I  declare  upon  my  conscience,"  set  over  against 
the  opinion  of  their  episcopal  colleagues  and  the  verdict  of  the 
Conference.    How  forcibly  does  Snethen  philosophize  and  ration- 
alize upon  this  issue:  "What  would  be  thought  of  the  Grand 
Turk,  for  instance,  if  he  should  oppose  any  plan  to  favor  the  liber- 
ties of  the  people,  because  it  was  unconstitutional.  Constitutions 
were  designed  to  set  bounds  to  power.    The  people  of  the  United 
States,  in  1787,  made  a  constitution  to  prevent  absolute  monarchy, 
not  to  confirm  it.    The  barons  of  England  met  at  Eunnymede  to 
set  bounds  to  the  power  of  the  kings,  and  not  to  form  a  great 
charter  of  despotism.  .  .  .    For  bishops  and  travelling  preachers 


16 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


to  employ  the  restrictions  only  to  restrain  the  hands  of  those 
who  labor  to  promote  liberty  makes  them  appear  so  much  like 
tyrants  that,  let  them  assert  to  the  contrary  ever  so  loudly,  people 
will  say,  'Actions  speak  louder  than  words!'  Why  will  they 
not  be  entreated  to  forbear  to  argue  that  they  have  a  constitution 
which  shuts  up  all  the  avenues  by  which  liberty  can  possibly 
enter  into  the  Church,  so  that  it  never  can  gain  an  admittance, 
unless  those  who  have  seated  themselves  in  power  shall  conde- 
scend to  open  the  door.  All  the  circumstances  connected  with 
this  constitutional  claim,  which  has  been  set  up  and  pursued  with 
so  much  perseverance,  appear  to  threaten  evil  consequences. 
When  our  countrymen  find  every  idea  which  they  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  attaching  to  a  constitution  reversed,  and  instead  of 
this  instrument  being  a  palladium  of  liberty,  as  they  supposed, 
becoming  a  mere  charter  of  self -created  and  monopolized  power, 
must  they  not  lose  all  confidence  in  the  agents  who  produced  the 
transformation. " 

Bangs  has  quite  fully  given  a  digest  of  the  whole  discussion  of 
the  elective  eldership  question  in  his  history,  and  with  marked 
impartiality,  seeing  that  he  favored  it,  but  Snethen  has  pointed 
out  the  very  gist  of  it,  in  the  alternative  argument:  "Either  the 
presiding  elders  should  become  responsible  to  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences, or  that  a  rule  should  be  made  to  prevent  them  from 
becoming  members  of  the  General  Conference."  Perhaps  the 
friends  of  the  measure  would  have  been  content  with  such  a 
restrictive  law  but  for  the  fact  that  it  in  turn  would  have  been  a 
gross  invasion  of  personal  rights,  and  an  offensive  piece  of  class 
legislation.  Wherefore?  The  working  of  the  hierarchic  prin- 
ciple had  already  become  patent, —  the  junior  preacher  voted  for 
the  senior  preacher  for  reasons  obvious  enough  in  the  practical 
administration  of  the  Conference  politics;  the  senior  voted  for 
his  presiding  elder,  and  the  presiding  elder  voted  for  all  measures 
countenanced  by  the  presiding  bishop,  and  opposed  those  he 
opposed.  As  a  consequence  the  list  of  elders  in  every  General 
Conference  grew,^  until  few  pastors  found  a  way  to  climb  the 

1  The  composition  of  the  General  Conference  of  1820  is  remarkable  as  an  illus- 
tration of  this  very  fact,  though  as  already  mentioned  but  twenty-eight  were  at 
the  time  in  actual  service  as  presiding  elders,  yet  McCaine,  who  knew  every  man 
of  them  personally,  says  that  it  was  composed  "  of  eighty-nine  sitting  members, 
sixty-three  of  whom  were  presiding  elders,  or  had  filled  that  station."  See 
Repository,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  375,  so  that  in  addition  to  the  twenty-eight  elders  in 
actual  office  there  were  thirtj-'five  ex-elders  in  it.  From  this  fact  one  can  estimate 
the  sweep  of  sentiment  that  crystallized  in  favor  of  an  elective  eldership.  How 


LOCAL  PREACHERS'  DISTRICT  CONFERENCE  17 


steeps  of  ecclesiastical  ambition ;  and  it  was  precisely  these  things 
that  ultimated  in  the  high-handed  steps  of  Soule  and  M^Kendree, 
under  cover  of  their  conscience  and  the  constitution,  as  they  in- 
terpreted it.  A  concluding  sentence  of  a  paragraph  as  to  this 
historical  era,  in  the  introductory  chapter  of  the  first  volume, 
makes  the  allegation :  "  It  marked  its  culmination ;  it  also  marked 
its  decadence."  It  was  made  after  the  facts,  but  the  prescient 
minds  of  Snethen  and  Alexander  McCaine  reached  the  same  con- 
clusion. In  a  few  years  thereafter,  the  former  said  (1823) : 
"  From  the  suspension  of  the  conciliatory  resolutions,  I  date  the 
commencement  of  the  downfall  of  our  bishops'  power; and  the 
latter,  in  1850,  wrote,  "  Methodist  Episcopacy  arrived  at  the  ne 
plus  ultra  of  power  and  authority  in  1820.  This  was  the  year  it 
ceased  to  advance;  and  from  this  year  also,  we  may  date  the 
commencement  of  its  decline."  A  succeeding  chapter  will  fur- 
nish the  rationale  of  it. 

One  more  action  of  this  General  Conference  challenges  notice 
before  it  is  dismissed  from  these  pages,  the  most  pregnant  in  its 
results  ever  held  down  to  1844,  and  intimately  connected  with  it 
in  its  root  principles,  as  will  hereafter  be  shown.  At  the  General 
Conference  of  1816,  the  local  ministers  and  preachers  had  peti- 
tioned that  body  for  representation  in  it.  The  answer  of  the  Con- 
ference in  the  negative  was  written  by  John  Emory,  and  was  a 
forcible  paper,  from  the  Conference  point  of  view.  The  locality 
had  increased  both  in  average  ability  and  numbers,  sustaining  the 
relation  of  nearly  three  to  one  of  the  itinerants,  which  at  this 
date  are  set  down  at  904,  and  now  that  so  large  a  proportion  of 
them  were  ordained,  either  as  deacons  or  elders,  the  question  of 
their  subordination  was  a  vexed  one.  In  1820  they  renewed  their 
petitions,  and  it  was  deemed  expedient  by  the  bishops  and  the 
itinerants  to  do  something  that  would  at  least  have  the  appear- 
ance of  concession  to  their  claims.^  The  Conference  created  "  The 
District  Conference,"  to  be  composed  of  "all  the  local  preachers 
in  the  presiding  elder's  district  who  have  been  licensed  two 

much  these  disgruntled  men,  who  secured  their  election  on  the  issue  over  the 
actual  incumbents  of  the  office,  had  to  do  with  the  result  may  be  recognized  as  a 
factor ;  for  at  this  time  there  were  sixty-five  elders'  districts.  Twenty-eight  of 
these  actual  incumbents  secured  election,  though  as  made  plain  from  the  debates 
not  a  few  of  them  favored  the  elective  system.  The  remaining  thirty-seven  were 
defeated  by  thirty-five  ^ex-elders,  presumably  on  this  issue.  It  is  a  curious  and 
instructive  study. 

1  This  concession  was  most  adroit  and  had  an  ulterior  purpose  well  exposed  by 
Hon.  Philemon  B.  Hopper  of  Maryland  in  the  Wesleyan  Repository  for  March, 
1822,  under  the  title,  "An  Earnest  Appeal."   He  makes  the  expose  in  these 
VOL.  II  —  c 


18 


mSTOllY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


years,"  and  there  was  transferred  to  it  all  the  powers  formerly 
vested  in  the  Quarterly  Conference  as  to  the  supervision  of  this 
class.  It  ran  through  about  a  decade  of  years,  and  then  died  of 
inanition.  It  was  a  mere  shadow  of  the  thing  the  locality  asked, 
and  never  was  popular  with  them.  It  was  often  difficult  to 
assemble  them  together.  It  proved  an  abortion,  but  use  was 
made  of  it  in  connection  with  the  proceedings  against  Reformers 
in  1827-30,  which  invests  it  with  an  historical  importance  it 
could  not  otherwise  claim  in  this  work. 

illuminating  words  :  "The  very  idea  that  the  people  should  know  and  appreciate 
their  rights  *  is  most  terrible  to  the  advocates  of  the  exceptionable  parts  of  our 
Church  Government.  This  was  strikingly  evinced  by  the  acts  of  the  last  General 
Conference ;  for  when  the  most  enlightened  local  preachers  in  the  different  parts 
of  the  country  (many  of  whom  were  once  found  to  rule  the  Church) ,  feeling  their 
state  of  degradation,  and  their  near  approximation  to  the  condition  of  the  private 
members  of  the  Church,  became  dissatisfied,  the  General  Conference  took  the 
alarm,  and,  fearing  that  their  clamors  might  arouse  the  people,  they  determined  to 
appease  them  by  raising  them  a  grade  higher  than  the  people.  They  gave  them 
the  power  to  hold  district  conferences,  to  make  local  preachers,  and  to  recommend 
preachers  to  travel,  thereby  taking  from  the  membership  what  little  of  the 
preacher-making  power  they  had  before.  This  nominal  distinction  appears  to 
have  satisfied  these  clamorous  local  preachers,  without  bestowing  on  them  one 
legislative  prerogative." 

*  See  this  strikingly  confirmed  in  the  succeeding  chapter. 

The  whole  of  this  local  preacher  question  on  which  so  much  can  be  said  for  and  against, 
proved  a  bull  in  the  china  shop,  both  to  the  itinerants  and  the  people  in  tentations  for  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  inequahties  between  the  last  two.  Snethen  was  a  warm  advocate  of  the  locality  as 
such,  but  did  not  favor  their  ordination,  and  when  they  failed  to  make  an  appreciative  use  of 
their  District  Conference  privilege,  he  despaired  of  a  satisfactory  adjustment  with  them. 
Through  ill-health,  he  was  of  the  class  for  a  number  of  years,  and  so  entitled  to  speak  without 
prejudice.  He  thus  speaks  :  "  In  this  same  General  Conference  the  local  preachers'  Conference 
was  authorized.  My  advice  was  asked  [he  was  then  local  himself].  It  was  that  whatever  the 
General  Conference  might  do  in  regard  to  the  local  preachers  should  be  real  and  not  nominal ; 
that  their  expectations  ought  not  to  be  raised  with  the  promise  of  substance  to  be  disappointed 
with  shadows.  I  had  been  an  advocate  of  the  local  preachers  for  twelve  years,  that  is,  until 
their  ordination  to  elder's  orders  was  sanctioned  by  the  General  Conference ;  but  the  fate  of 
their  Conference  disclosed  facts  enough  to  convince  me  that  as  a  body  they  would  not  be  apt  to 
profit  by  anything  which  might  be  gained  for  them.  As  I  had  become  local  I  ceased  to  have 
any  immediate  personal  interest  in  the  election  of  presiding  elders  by  the  members  of  the 
Annual  Conferences.  But  to  preserve  consistency  I  gave  the  cause  all  the  continued  support  in 
my  power."  This  was  written  in  1S35.  See  Introduction  to  his  volume  on  "Lay  Representa- 
tion,"  for  that  year.  Methodism  in  England,  next  to  the  Wesleys,  owed  its  origin  to  local 
preachers,  and  in  America  they  absolutely  originated  it.  It  would  seem  that  too  much  honor 
could  not  be  paid  them.  When  Richard  Allen  inaugurated  the  African  M.  E.  Church  they  were 
admitted  to  the  Conferences  on  an  equality  with  the  itinerants.  Perhaps  if  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1S20  had  been  sagacious  enough  —  inasmuch  as  the  District  Conference  in  its  ulterior 
purpose  was  to  forestall  an  agitation  of  lay  rights  —  to  admit  them  likewise,  reenforced  by  this 
Influential  class  in  almost  every  location,  it  might  have  further  delayed  Lay-Reform  for  scores  of 
years.  But  the  illusive  arrogation  had  seized  the  itinerants  that  the  man  on  horseback,  riding 
upon  saddle-bags,  had  imparted  to  him  a  capacity  for  governing  impossible  to  the  laity,  or  to 
the  locality.    Perpetual  motion  on  a  circuit  was  virtue-inspiring  and  wisdom-imparting. 


CHAPTER  II 


Fears  of  M'Kendree  and  notably  of  Soule  of  the  effect  upon  the  membership  of 
the  defeat  of  the  presiding  elder  question  — It  did  alarm  the  "people,"  and 
was  the  seed  of  the  Reform  of  1827-30  —  Snethen  on  this  point  —  M'Kendree's 
reference  of  the  measure  to  the  Annual  Conferences;  failure  of  it,  and  his 
"baby  act"  plea  for  his  change  of  views  since  O'Kelly's  defection  analyzed 
to  his  discomfiture  —  Sketch  of  W.  S.  Stockton  and  the  inception  of  the  Wes- 
ley an  Repository  in  1821  —  The  Repository  in  its  objects  and  contributors 
and  support  carefully  reviewed  — In  it  James  Smith  published  an  unanswera- 
ble argument  against  the  Constitutional  nature  of  the  restrictive  articles  of 
1808  and  quoted  here  in  full  —  The  quest  since  then  of  the  old  Church  for  its 
"  Constitution  "  never  yet  found  —  The  local  preacher  contention  and  its  dam- 
age to  the  Lay-Representation  movement  of  1820-30  fully  considered  —  First 
public  Reform  meeting  in  Cincinnati,  August  19,  1823  — Ezekiel  Cooper's  plan 
—  Early  Reformers. 

Reviewing  the  situation  in  1820,  Bishop  Paine,  in  his  "  Biog- 
raphy of  Bishop  M^Kendree,"  says,  "Who  can  doubt  but  that 
on  both  sides  there  was  honest  difference  of  opinion  among  breth- 
ren equally  good  and  true  ?  Who  doubts  that  Garrettson,  Bangs, 
Hedding,  Pickering,  Emory,  and  Waugh,  and  their  colleagues,  on 
one  side,  and  Collins,  Capers,  Andrew,  Roszel,  Reed,  and  Soule, 
and  their  associates,  on  the  other  side,  were  aiming  with  equal  zeal 
and  integrity  to  promote  what  they  sincerely  believed  to  be  the 
permanent  interests  of  the  Church  ?  "  It  need  not  be  doubted, 
though  sincerity  and  honesty  are  often,  as  in  this  case,  made  to 
cover  indirection  of  method  and  arbitrary  proceeding,  both  of  which 
were  conspicuously  exhibited  by  the  opponents  of  the  measure. 
Nothing  could  disguise  the  fact  that  a  majority  vote  of  more  than 
two-thirds  was  made  a  minority  by  the  seductions  of  patronage 
and  the  menaces  of  power.  No  one  can  doubt  that  if  the  measure 
had  been  defeated  by  honorable  means,  no  such  distracting  agita- 
tion and  imminent  peril  would  have  followed  its  defeat.  Let  the 
consequences  be  examined. 

M'Kendree,  in  his  J ournal  of  this  date,  says,  "  The  Conference 
hastened  to  a  close,  and  the  members  departed  to  their  respective 
charges,  but  with  different  views  relative  to  our  Church  polity, 
the  result  of  the  Conference,  and  the  state  of  the  Episcopacy ;  and 

19 


20 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


their  conjlicting  views  and  apprehensions  were  hut  too  freely  dissemi- 
nated among  the  peopleJ'  And  Soule,  writing  to  M'Kendree  IVIay  6, 
1821/  expressed  fears  of  the  course  the  latter  had  determined  to 
pursue,  that  of  submitting  the  suspended  resolutions  for  the  deci- 
sion of  the  Annual  Conferences,  and  in  a  few  sentences  lets  in  the 
light  on  their  secret  forebodings  as  to  the  effect  upon  the  ignored 
''people."  "But  my  principal  fears  are  the  effect  the  measure 
may  have  on  the  membership).  The  measures  of  the  last  General 
Conference  have  given  many  of  our  people  great  alarm.^'  The  ital- 
ics in  both  citations  are  supplied.  Following  the  extract  from 
Soule's  letter,  he  indulges  reflections  indicative  of  the  mole-like 
blindness  of  the  autocratic  mind  as  to  the  acquiescence  of  the  peo- 
ple in  their  own  ignoring  and  subjection.  It  is  the  very  essence 
of  paternity  —  your  lordly  rulers  in  State  and  Church  construe 
silence  to  be  peace,  and  when  the  rod  is  stretched  over  them  until 
their  human  nature  winces,  the  "agitators"  are  denounced  for 
disturbing  the  blissful  serenity  of  their  paternal  reign.  The  great 
alarm  among  the  people,  which  Soule  had  reason  to  witness  more 
in  1821,  than  M'Kendree  had  in  May,  1820,  both  of  them  utterly 
misunderstood.  It  was  not  as  they  put  it,  that  they  feared  a  dis- 
turbance of  the  enactments  of  1808,  in  which  Soule  imagined  they 
had  acquiesced,  so  that  "  general  joy  prevailed  under  the  conviction 
that  Ave  had  arrived  at  that  permanent  state  of  things  in  which  all 
might  rest."  The  query  comes  up  :  How  could  they  be  known  to 
acquiesce  in  measures  about  which  they  were  not  consulted  in  the 
remotest  degree  ?  Their  alarm  was  excited  by  the  spectacle  of 
these  war-horses  of  the  episcopacy  taking  the  bit  in  their  teeth  in 
defiance  of  all  restraint.  They  applied  fire  to  the  dry  stubble  — 
what  marvel  that  these  peasants  ecclesiastical  should  cry  out  when 
they  saw  it  menace  farmhouse  and  barn,  fence  and  forest.  Snethen 
voiced  their  deeper  thinking,  and  requotation  is  demanded.  "Truly, 
if  people  care  not  how  the  church  is  governed,  their  governors  will, 
in  process  of  time,  care  little  how  they  govern  them.  This  indif- 
ference is  one  of  the  awful  and  undoubted  evidences  of  the  effects 
of  an  absolute  government."  Yet  the  contention  is  not  made  that 
all  the  laity  were  equally  affected  in  this  way.  As  in  the  ranks 
of  the  ministry,  so  in  those  of  the  laity,  there  was  a  hierarchic  party. 
Snethen  aptly  illustrated  the  divergence :  "  From  many  cases  which 
we  can  recollect,  we  are  all  persuaded  that  the  tories,  as  they  were 
called,  were  not  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  term,  enemies  of 
their  country,  or  friends  to  tyranny.  In  what  then  did  they  dif- 
1  Tigert's  "  History,"  p.  365. 


ABBITRAEY  RULINGS  ALARMED  ''THE  PEOPLE''  21 


fer  from  the  whigs  ?    Why,  in  their  unbounded  confidence  in 
their  rulers.    True,  said  they,  we  may  be  taxed  without  our  con- 
sent ;  but  we  ought  to  help  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  mother 
country ;  the  parliament  will  never  tax  us  unreasonably.  The 
whigs,  on  the  contrary,  looked  steadily  at  the  principle;  if  the 
parliament,  said  they,  assume  the  right,  or  the  power,  to  take  a 
penny  without  our  consent,  they  may  take  a  pound;  and  if  one 
pound,  all  our  property.    How  was  this  last  argument  resisted  ? 
We  now  look  back  with  wonder  upon  the  blind  and  obstinate  at- 
tachment of  our  countrymen  to  the  then  existing  powers.  But 
there  was  another  cause  operating  on  their  minds,  while  their  con- 
fidence was  strong  in  the  goodness  of  the  king  and  parliament ; 
their  partisans  took  care  to  influence  their  feelings  against  the 
assertors  of  principle.    You  have,  said  they,  more  to  fear  from 
these  revolutionists,  than  from  the  established  government,  which 
will  not  take  more  than  is  necessary.    It  was  by  this  means  that 
principle  was  lost  sight  of,  and  passion  and  prejudice  were  raised 
to  the  highest  degree.  .  .  .   Absolute  government  is  wrong  in  prin- 
ciple, and  confidence  in  it  is  wrong.    All  these  worthy  itinerants 
are  creatures  of  a  day.    Men  are  given  to  change,  but  principles 
are  immortal.    The  principles  of  these  obnoxious  travelling  and 
local  preachers,  and  the  brethren  with  whom  they  act,  are  right. 
They  say,  and  they  say  truly,  that  the  best  of  men  ought  not  to 
be  intrusted  with  unnecessary  powers  and  prerogatives."  Once 
more,  as  bearing  directly  upon  the  times  of  1820-24 :  "  For 
many  years  my  mind  has  been  quieted,  as  it  regarded  any  imme- 
diate danger  the  principle  of  lay-delegation  might  be  exposed  to, 
by  taking  it  for  granted  that,  should  a  crisis  arrive,  a  majority  of 
travelling  preachers,  as  American  citizens,  could  not  be  found  pub- 
licly and  officially  to  declare  that  the  laity  have  no  right  directly 
to  participate  in  church  legislation.   Transpiring  events,  however, 
continued  to  excite  suspicion  that  I  might  have  been  too  sanguine ; 
and  the  suspended  resolutions  converted  suspicion  into  certainty. 
If  liberal  principles  had  prevailed,  the  evidences  of  their  decline 
were  irresistible.    Can  men,  who  will  yield  their  own  rights  in  a 
struggle  with  prerogative,  be  trusted  with  the  rights  of  others  ? 
Thus  was  securely  laid,  by  the  ministerial  father  of  Lay-Kepresen- 
tation  in  America,  the  foundation,  rationally  and  philosophically, 
of  the  great  Methodist  lieformation  of  the  decade  from  1820  to 
1830.    But  before  it  is  further  opened  by  the  laic  father,  William 
S.  Stockton,  let  the  devious  course  of  Bishop  M'Kendree  be  traced ; 
his  personal  responsibility  for  submitting  the  suspended  resolu- 


22 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


tions  for  the  approval  of  the  Annual  Conferences ;  the  expedients 
resorted  to,  and  the  finality  of  the  bold  challenge  thus  be  made. 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  General  Conference,  Bishop 
M'Kendree  remained  in  Baltimore  for  some  weeks  recruiting  his 
health  and  fortifying  himself  by  consultation  with  his  friends  in 
his  determination  to  submit  the  suspended  resolutions  to  the 
Annual  Conferences.  For  this  action  he  cited  the  precedent  of 
Asbury,  who,  after  organizing  the  Genesee  Conference,  met  the 
protests  of  the  preachers  by  submitting  the  act  to  the  Annual 
Conferences  among  which  he  was  sustained  as  well  as  by  the 
succeeding  General  Conference.  He  urged  other  plausible  reasons 
and  proceeded  to  his  task.  The  subject  inspired  him  with  new 
strength  of  body  and  mind.  It  was  to  be  the  supreme  act  of  his 
official  life.  He  tells  in  his  Journal  what  alienations  of  former 
friends  it  had  wrought,  how  coldly  he  was  greeted,  if  not  repulsed, 
for  the  stand  he  had  taken  both  at  the  Conference  and  now. 
Giving  him  all  the  benefit  of  his  almost  pathetic  pleas,  the  reader 
will  wonder  that  he  should  be  surprised  at  the  treatment  accorded 
him.  Not  a  few  who  were  in  the  Conference  of  1820,  like  the 
Bishop  himself,  had  also  been  members  of  the  memorable  one  of 
1792,  though  nearly  thirty  years  had  rolled  between.  Among 
these  were  George,  Pickering,  Garrettson,  Cooper,  Eoszel,  and 
Reed,  the  first  four  stanch  advocates  of  the  suspended  resolutions. 
They  had  not  forgotten  the  fiery  speech  of  the  young  elder  of 
1792,  M'Kendree ;  his  blistering  words  in  denunciation  of  the  un- 
amenable powers  of  the  episcopacy ;  the  concerted  effort  of  the 
preachers  under  initial  auspices  almost  as  certain  of  success  in  the 
matter  of  the  Appeal,  as  were  those  of  1820  when  success  was 
overslaughed  by  the  exercise,  jointly  of  himself  and  Soule,  of  the 
very  powers  then  so  trenchantly  deprecated.  Cooper,  as  was 
found,  has  embalmed  them  in  his  semi-centennial  sermon.  Bishop 
Paine  in  his  "  Life  of  M'Kendree,"  says  not  one  word  about  this 
famous  speech.  It  were  well  enough  if  he  had  preserved  the 
same  silence  anent  his  incongruous  conduct  subsequently  instead 
of  an  almost  reckless  attempt  to  vindicate  his  consistency.  To 
be  quoted  point  blank  against  yourself  is  an  annoying  predica- 
ment. M'Kendree  now  had  it  to  meet,  but  he  did  it  in  silence. 
His  words  were  bandied  from  mouth  to  mouth,  "  It  is  an  insult 
to  my  understanding,  and  is  such  an  arbitrary  stretch  of  power, 
so  tyrannical  [or],  despotic,  that  I  cannot  [or],  will  not  submit  to 
it."  It  provided  a  never-to-be-forgotten  epigram  for  the  Reformers 
of  1820-30.    It  is  all  that  is  preserved  of  an  elaborate  and  mas- 


m'eendeee's  ''baby  act''  plea 


23 


terful  speech  in  vindication  of  the  Right  of  Appeal,  a  first  cousin 
measure  to  the  Elective  Eldership.  If  it  was  written  or  delivered 
from  notes,  M'Kendree  destroyed  them,  or  Soule,  into  whose 
hands  his  posthumous  papers  came,  never  disclosed  anything. 

There  was,  however,  found  among  his  papers  a  copy  of  a  letter 
written  in  1803,  at  the  request  of  Bishop  Asbury,  in  which  he 
extenuates  his  conduct  in  the  matter  of  his  advocacy  of  the  Kight 
of  Appeal  in  1792,  this  feature  probably  being  the  objective  of 
Asbury  in  securing  the  communication,  as  M'Kendree  was  then 
under  his  special  patronage  —  indeed  it  might  be  said  with  as 
much  truth,  had  become  the  echo  of  Asbury,  as  it  was  said  and  in 
this  letter  acknowledged  by  M'Kendree  that  he  was  the  mere 
echo  of  O'Kelly,  neither  of  which  was  true  —  for  he  was  rapidly 
rising  as  a  leader.  It  is  autobiographical  and  about  one-third  of 
it  devoted  to  his  relations  with  O'Kelly.  It  simply  pleads  the 
"baby  act,"  as  the  following  extracts  will  show:  "Mr.  O'Kelly 
changed  his  mind  [about  the  Council  business],  and  began  in  our 
private  interviews,  to  inform  me  of  the  imminent  danger  of  near 
approaching  ruin  which  our  then  flourishing  Church  would  in  all 
probability  suffer ;  that  this  mischief  had  itself  a  cause,  which 
according  to  unequivocal  indications,  was  the  want  of  religion  in 
a  party  of  leading  characters  in  the  ministry  —  yourself,  sir,  at 
the  head  of  them  —  whose  unbounded  thirst  for  power  and  money, 
as  I  understood  him,  was  to  pull  down  destruction  on  the  Church 
of  God.  .  .  .  But  alas  !  my  greatest  affliction  in  those  days  came 
from  where  I  ought  to  have  had  comfort !  When  my  old  friend 
[Mr.  O'Kelly]  visited  us,  much  of  the  spare  time  was  taken  up  in 
private  communication  and  consultation,  the  subject  matter  of 
which  was,  '  the  manner  of  a  party  which  more  and  more  mani- 
fested the  badness  of  their  polity  and  principles,  and  must,'  as  he 
said,  ^sooner  or  later,  inevitably  ruin  the  Church  of  God.'  .  .  . 
I  heard  him  and  believed  what  I  heard.  ...  I  was  unfortunate 
enough  to  believe  the  report,  and  from  this  time  counteracting 
measures  were  consulted.  ...  I  therefore  refused  to  take  a 
regular  station  at  Conference,  because  I  expected  to  reject  the 
'  monstrous  system '  when  it  appeared,  but  met  you  and  the  Pre- 
siding Elder  a  few  days  after  Conference  and  took  an  appoint- 
ment." There  is  no  allusion  to  his  speech  in  the  Conference  of 
1792  —  it  would  have  neutralized  the  force  of  this  "baby  act"  plea. 

Every  man  has  a  right  to  explain  himself,  and  when  it  is  con- 
gruous with  the  associated  facts,  charity  demands  that  it  be 
accepted.    But  how  does  his  explanation  accord  with  the  asso- 


24 


EI8T0BY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ciated  facts  ?  He  was  converted  under  John  Easter,  and  for 
several  years  was  under  his  influence  for  good,  but  Easter  was 
no  agitator,  or  reformer,  but  a  stanch  Asburyan,  and  if  he  was 
such  a  mere  sponge  as  is  represented,  he  imbibed  his  church 
politics.  He  was  ordained  deacon  and  elder  in  the  next  five  years, 
and  as  such  entered  the  General  Conference  of  1792,  being  then 
thirty-five  years  of  age.  But  the  sponge  came  in  contact  with 
O'Kelly  as  a  Presiding  Elder  in  this  time  and  by  exosmose  lost 
Easter's  Asburyan  views  and  by  endosmose  absorbed  O'Kelly. 
Then  after  a  month,  meeting  Bishop  Asbury  at  his  father's 
house,  the  Bishop  having  held  the  Virginia  Conference  and  there 
received  M'Kendree's  resignation  in  writing  as  an  Elder,  which 
carried  his  membership  in  the  Church  as  well.  Through  the 
Presiding  Elder  an  interview  was  arranged  between  the  Bishop 
and  M'Kendree  at  his  father's.  It  may  be  repeated  that  no  man 
knows  all  that  transpired,  but  it  is  known  that  immediately  the 
sponge  threw  off  O'Kelly  and  absorbed  Asbury,  and  was  sent 
to  jSTorfolk  station,  and  thereafter  promotion  after  promotion 
attended  his  course  till  the  Bishopric  itself  was  reached.  Can 
any  one  believe  that  this  man  of  stern,  uncompromising,  inde- 
pendent manhood  could  be  such  a  sponge  ?  Let  those  do  so 
who  can.  Undoubtedly  M'Kendree  made  some  discoveries  after 
his  return  to  Asburyan  fealty.  Perhaps  he  saw  him  personally 
in  a  different  light,  especially  while  he  travelled  with  him  on  the 
Bishop's  invitation  whose  strong  character  rarely  failed  to  impress. 
Perhaps  he  saw  that  the  winning  side  after  all  was  with  Asbury, 
and  the  rapidity  of  his  conversion  from  an  extreme  O'Kellyite  to 
a  leonine  Asburyan  is  only  what  all  such  tergiversations  prove : 
the  pervert  is  nothing  if  not  ultra.  Explanations  like  these  are 
in  accord  with  historical  parallels,  and  Reform  Methodism  at 
every  stage  of  it  has  its  examples. 

There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  abandonment  of  a  posi- 
tion and  of  those  associated  with  it,  and  the  diligent  pursuit 
thereafter  of  old  methods,  not  involving  repudiation  and  denun- 
ciation of  former  principles  and  their  advocates ;  and  that  new- 
born zeal  that  ignores  the  past,  destroys  what  was  builded,  and 
exhibits  illumination  with  preferment,  or  as  cited  in  the  former 
volume  and  now  repeated,  "God  forbid  that  men  should  not 
learn  while  they  live,  but  it  is  a  bad  sign  when  illumination 
and  preferment  come  together."  Gatch  for  1779,  and  Hope  Hull 
and  Bruce  for  1792,  are  examples  of  the  former  and  they  lost  no 
moral  reputation  in  consequence,  while  Dickins  for  1779,  and 


m'kenbree'S  perversion  explained  25 


M'Kendree  for  1792,  are  examples  of  the  latter,  and  posterity  will 
not  cease  to  repeat  as  its  verdict  Tyerman's  sentiment  as  to 
changelings  quoted  in  the  first  volume :  "  Wesley  had  a  perfect 
right  to  change  his  opinions,  .  .  .  but  when  a  man  like  Wesley 
does  that,  he  can  hardly  expect  to  escape  unfriendly  criticism. 
The  world  dislikes  changelings  and  hesitates  to  trust  them."  Other 
instances  of  both  these  classes  will  be  met  with  in  the  next  decade 
of  this  History.  But  why  so  elaborate  an  exposure  of  this  phase 
of  M'Kendree's  career  ?  Simply  and  sufficiently  because  no  less 
elaborate  attempts  have  been  and  are  still  made  to  suppress  or 
minify  the  facts  to  a  vanishing  point,  and  the  truth  of  history 
demands  it.  One  other  fact  and  this  episode  will  be  dismissed. 
The  much  traduced  and  vilified  O'Kelly,  when  he  heard  of  the 
defection  of  M'Kendree,  so  far  as  may  be  gleaned  from  his  pub- 
lished writings,  the  only  data  that  remain,  did  not  turn  upon 
him  with  vituperation,  as  Asbury  and  M'Kendree  turned  upon 
him,  or  hold  up  his  motives  to  scornful  imputation  —  he  passed 
the  betrayal  in  silence. 

Eeturning  to  the  summer  of  1820,  and  M'Kendree's  prepara- 
tion of  the  Address  upon  the  suspended  resolutions  he  submitted 
to  the  twelve  Annual  Conferences,  its  consideration  is  in  place. 
It  may  be  found  in  full  in  Paine's  "Life  of  M'Kendree,"  and 
it  occupies  fourteen  twelvemo  printed  pages  or  about  thirty-five 
hundred  words.  It  is  lucid,  logical,  persuasive,  and  exhaustive  of 
his  side  of  the  question.  Its  assumptions  are  that  the  Kestrictive 
Articles  of  1808  are  the  Constitution  of  the  Church,  in  the  making 
of  which  that  General  Conference  exhausted  the  sovereignty  of  the 
legislative  powers,  except  by  the  practically  impossible  method  of 
an  approving  vote  of  all  the  Annual  Conferences  and  of  a  ratifica- 
tion finally  of  two-thirds  of  the  General  Conference.  His  postu- 
lates are  stated  with  an  extreme  reference  to  intents  and  results 
never  dreamed  of  by  the  advocates  of  the  Elective  Eldership, 
the  ultimate  being  the  destruction  of  the  General  Superintend- 
ency,  the  abrogation  of  the  itinerancy,  and  the  nullification  of 
all  the  guarantees  of  the  Constitution.  If  M'Kendree  believed 
it,  and  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  did,  then  was  the  situa- 
tion alarming  indeed,  and  his  Address  was  enough  to  alarm  the 
whole  Church.  It  did  so,  but  not  in  the  way  the  Address  was 
intended.  That  h^  was  alarmed  by  the  clamor  around  his  ears, 
which  grew  in  volume  and  intensity  as  the  facts  gradually  sifted 
down  among  the  people,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  even 
M'Kendree  made  pause ;  and,  when  he  arrived  at  the  Ohio  Con- 


26 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ference,  September  16,  1821,  having  delayed  a  full  year  the 
presentation,  he  suggested,  after  the  body  had  voted  with  him 
that  the  suspended  resolutions  were  unconstitutional,  that  never- 
theless they  recommend  their  passage  and  incorporation  as  a 
modification  of  the  restrictive  articles.  If  he  had  conceded  that 
much  while  they  were  under  consideration  in  1820,  it  might  have 
conciliated  the  friends  of  the  measure  and  anticipated  the  fearful 
agitation  that  was  now  fermenting  through  the  whole  Church. 
But  the  iron  men  of  Episcopal  rule  never  concede  anything; 
imminence  of  revolution  wrested  this  from  M'Kendree.  Following 
Ohio,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  Tennessee,  Mississippi,  South  Carolina, 
and  Virginia  took  the  same  action,  all  but  South  Carolina  also 
accepting  the  Bishop's  recommendation  to  incorporate  the  Elec- 
tive Eldership  in  the  '^Constitution."  One  tires  of  a  word  when  it 
has  so  flimsy  a  foundation  as  in  this  case.  South  Carolina  simply 
took  no  action  on  the  recommendation. 

It  will  be  noted  as  of  future  historical  importance  that  these 
were  all  Southern  and  Southwestern  Conferences.  Bishop  Paine 
says :  "  It  was  a  magnanimous  surrender  of  preference  for  the 
sake  of  harmony ;  but  it  was  a  dangerous  concession,  and  proved 
unavailing  though  well  intended.  The  other  five  Conferences 
refused  to  accept  the  change  as  a  constitutional  measure,  because 
they  were  umvilling  to  acknowledge  the  want  of  power  in  the 
General  Conference  to  effect  it.  They  laid  the  Address  upon  the 
table  and  there  let  it  lie,  —  virtually  refused  to  act  on  it,  and 
thus  tacitly  avowed  their  determination  to  carry  the  change  into 
effect  independently  of  the  constitutional  scruples  of  the  Bishops 
and  other  Conferences.  Great  exertions  were  made  to  effect  this 
purpose."  The  Conferences  which  thus  claimed  the  right  to  con- 
strue law  as  well  as  the  bishops  were  the  New  England,  Xew 
York,  Genesee,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore.  It  was  an  issue 
joined  upon  the  principle  involved.  Five  against  seven  on  the 
resolutions  themselves  and  six  to  six  on  the  recommendation  to 
accept  it  as  extra-constitutional,  and,  as  it  required  the  concur- 
rence of  all  the  Annual  Conferences,  it  is  seen  how  emphatically 
it  was  defeated  on  the  Bishop's  own  ground.  The  action  of  the 
Philadelphia  Conference  was  most  pronounced,  Cooper  carrying 
it  unanimously  against  the  Bishop.  South  Carolina  was  as 
emphatic  in  favor,  and  so  reveals  how  the  two  sections,  North 
and  South  in  Methodism,  came  to  be  arrayed  against  each  other : 
the  first  contending  for  the  continued  sovereignty  of  the  General 
Conference  with  an  interrogation  at  least  as  to  the  constitutional 


m'kendbee's  defeat  m  annual  conferences  27 


nature  of  the  enactments  of  1808,  and  the  second  making  no  ques- 
tion that  the  Asbury-M'Kendree-Soule  view  of  it  was  received  as 
binding  the  conscience.  It  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel  how  this 
cause  operated  in  dividing  the  Church  in  1844,  the  slavery  ques- 
tion being  only  its  occasion.  When  M'Kendree  reached  the 
Baltimore  Conference  in  1822,  presented  his  Address  and  accent- 
uated his  anxiety  to  have  it  indorsed  by  this  old  and  influential 
conference,  John  Emory  —  the  intrepid  advocate  of  an  Elective 
Eldership  in  1820  —  was  moved  to  throw  himself  into  the  breach. 
His  son  Eobert  in  his  "  Life  of  Emory,"  p.  143,  says  of  this 
episode:  "Mr.  Emory  thought  that  justice  to  himself  and  the 
cause  which  he  espoused  demanded  that  he  should  expose  what 
he  considered  to  be  its  fallacies,  especially  as  he  had  previously 
discharged  the  duty  of  personal  friendship  by  doing  the  same 
privately  to  the  Bishop  when  consulted  on  the  Address  before 
it  was  made.  As  the  result  of  the  debate  which  ensued,  a  reso- 
lution pronouncing  the  suspended  resolutions  unconstitutional 
was  indefinitely  postponed  by  a  large  vote."  ^  The  speech  brought 
Emory  more  than  ever  into  conspicuous  notice;  as  a  champion 
of  Eef  orm  he  was  admired,  and  by  its  opponents  he  was  respected. 
Yet  it  will  be  seen  that,  despite  this  rebuff,  the  power  and  pat- 
ronage of  the  episcopacy  so  wrought  through  its  henchmen  that  at 
the  election  for  delegates  to  the  General  Conference  of  1824,  this 
question  having  been  largely  made  the  issue,  he  was  defeated. 

Soule's  admonition  to  M'Kendree  as  to  his  fears  of  such  a  pro- 
ceeding as  was  proposed  —  to  carry  the  suspended  resolutions 
around  to  the  Conferences  for  approval  —  was  sagacious  and  pro- 
phetical. "  But  my  principal  fears  are  the  effect  which  the  meas- 
ure may  have  on  the  membership.  The  measures  of  the  last 
General  Conference  have  given  our  people  great  alarm."  How 
could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Two-thirds  of  the  most  influential 
preachers  of  the  Church  had  returned  to  their  homes  chagrined 
over  a  defeat  by  methods  the  most  indirect,  and  by  Episcopal 
interference,  the  most  arbitrary.  It  inaugurated  a  new  condition 
of  things  as  to  the  people.  The  Annual  Conferences  were  held 
with  closed  doors,  and  the  cue  from  the  Elders  to  the  preachers 
seems  to  have  been  not  to  discuss  church  government,  or  Confer- 
ence differences  among  the  people  —  they  were  treated  as  in  non- 
age. But  now  in  a  struggle  with  the  Episcopacy  they  instinct- 
ively turned  to  the  people.  They  could  not  refrain  from  talking 
about  it  in  the  families,  and  the  laity  took  sides  as  well.    If  not 

1  The  motion  was  made  by  Asa  Shinn. 


28 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


much  versed  in  so-called  cliureli  government,  they  had  received  a 
schooling  in  civics.  The  whole  Revolutionary  War  had  been  for 
an  idea,  a  principle,  an  abstract  right,  and  a  concrete  liberty. 
For  years  every  hustings  rang  with  oratory  on  the  principles  of 
civil  liberty.  They  quite  thoroughly  understood  their  rights  and, 
understanding,  were  prepared  to  maintain  them,  and  the  war  of 
1812-14  only  emphasized  the  education.  Thoughtful  laymen  of 
the  class  of  Simon  Sommers,  noticed  in  the  first  volume,  took  up 
the  issues  of  those  who  had  "  the  rule  over  them  "  in  their  much 
loved  Methodism.  The  Discipline  was  examined  and  a  strangely 
anomalous  condition  of  things  was  discovered.  The  "  Constitu- 
tion "  of  1808  made  provision  that  forever  thereafter  —  taking  the 
view  of  the  Asbury-^I'Kendree-Soule  party  —  the  General  Con- 
ference was  to  be  "  composed  of  delegates  from  the  Annual  Confer- 
ences," and  the  Annual  Conferences  were  to  be  composed  of 
the  preachers,  and  the  delegates  were  to  be  chosen  by  a  ratio  of 
preachers  in  the  Conferences ;  the  membership  was  a  basis  for 
nothing,  but  to  pray,  pay,  and  obey.  It  was  discovered  that 
while  they  slept  the  toils  had  been  ingeniously  entwined  around 
them.  It  was  a  desperate  situation  indeed ;  for  if  in  this  tentative 
struggle  with  power  so  slight  a  boon  to  the  preachers  as  an  elec- 
tive eldership  under  the  disability  of  nominations  by  the  Episco- 
pacy is  crushed  out,  what  chance  would  they  have  to  assert  their 
Christian  manhood  along  the  same  lines? 

Ah  me,  it  was  dismal  enough  to  contemplate.  And  then  they 
reverenced  these  men  so  highly  for  their  work's  sake  and  were 
indebted  to  them  for  a  gospel  of  free  salvation  —  their  spiritual 
liberty ;  and  they  were  so  used  to  the  state  of  affairs,  and  as 
Snethen  said  of  the  general  principles  involved,  and  so  in  this 
particular  instance  of  lay  ignoring,  it  was  "a  usage,  or  custom 
that  ought  to  continue  because  it  has  been  —  that  it  is  not  old 
because  it  is  right,  but  right  because  it  is  old."  It  was  Wesley's 
way,  and  all  his  ways  had  been  canonized.  It  was  sacrilegious  to 
think  otherwise.  Yet  think  they  must,  and  one  of  those  thinkers 
up  in  New  Jersey,  like  his  prototype  in  Virginia,  Major  Sommers, 
must  express  his  thoughts  also.  The  agitation  was  circumscribed 
by  the  limits  of  American  Methodism  only.  Reform  had  become 
a  word  coincident  with  the  membership.  The  negative  of  five  of 
the  largest  and  most  influential  of  the  Conferences  had  said  to  the 
Episcopacy,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  come,  but  no  farther."  Though, 
as  will  be  seen,  that  negative  was  overcome  by  methods  only  too 
well  known  by  the  fuglemen  of  po\^er  and  patronage,  it  never 


WESLEY  AN  REPOSITORY  AND  ITS  EDITOR  29 


ceased  to  be  a  negative,  and  it  gradually  wrought  a  circumscrip- 
tion of  Episcopal  powers  at  least  in  administration. 

William  Smith  Stockton  was  born  April  8,  1785,  at  Burlington, 
N.  J.  He  was  descended  from  good  families,  the  Stocktons  and 
the  Gardiners,  honorably  known  in  colonial  times.  His  parents 
were  Methodists  of  the  first  generation,  his  father's  house  a 
religious  centre  for  class,  prayer,  and  preaching  meetings,  so  that 
in  very  early  life  he  became  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  He  had  every  educational  advantage  his  day  afforded, 
and  soon  developed  a  taste  for  reading  and  writing.  In  1807  he 
married  Elizabeth  S.  Hewlings,  an  admirable  and  pious  woman 
and  a  member  of  the  same  Church.  Soon  after  his  marriage  he 
removed  to  Mount  Holly  and  there  his  firstborn,  Thomas  Hewlings, 
afterward  the  eminent  and  unsurpassed  preacher,  was  born.  Subse- 
quently he  removed  to  Trenton,  where  he  was  associated  with  his 
uncle  in  the  book  business.  He  afterward  lived  in  Easton,  Pa., 
and  in  his  house  the  first  Methodist  prayer-meeting  was  opened 
in  that  town.  In  1822  he  removed  to  Philadelphia,  which  city 
was  his  home  for  nearly  all  the  remainder  of  his  life.  He  pub- 
lished his  first  book  in  1820  —  "  Truth  vs.  a  Wesley  an  Methodist, 
and  other  objectors."  It  was  an  animadversion  on  a  book  entitled 
"  Methodist  Error,"  the  author  being  John  G.  Watson,  well  known 
by  his  work,  "  Watson's  Annals  of  Philadelphia."  In  1822,  he 
published  "  Seven  Nights,"  etc.,  one  of  the  earliest  of  temperance 
protests.  It  was  four  years  prior  to  the  organization  of  the 
American  Temperance  Society,  in  Boston,  Mass.,  and  thus  placed 
him  among  the  very  first  advocates  of  total  abstinence.  Though 
there  was  no  means  of  communication  in  the  Methodist  Church 
of  that  day  except  through  the  Methodist  Magazine,  which  he 
knew  would  interdict  freedom  of  discussion  on  a  subject  which 
was  now  near  his  heart  and  absorbing  to  his  mind  —  the  polity  of 
the  Methodist  Church  —  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  Ezekiel 
Cooper,  and  other  leading  preachers,  put  him  into  possession  of 
the  whole  Episcopal  controversy  of  the  times,  and  his  discriminat- 
ing intellect  and  strong  American  instincts  at  once  ranked  him 
among  the  Reformers.  He  determined  upon  a  literary  venture 
at  his  own  risk  both  pecuniary  and  ecclesiastical  —  tentative  and 
uncertain  of  the  result.  In  February,  1821,  he  issued  a  specimen 
number,  of  which  no  copy  is  preserved  so  far  as  the  writer  has 
knowledge.  It  must  have  been  encouraged  under  its  title,  The 
Wesleyan  Repository,  as  in  April  following  its  regular  publication 
began  as  a  semimonthly  magazine  of  sixteen  large  octavo  pages. 


30 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  terms  were  ^2.50  per  annum.  The  first  volume  is  now  before 
me,  but  notice  of  its  contents  must  be  deferred  until  this  brief 
sketch  of  his  life  is  completed.  He  was  for  a  number  of  years 
superintendent  of  the  Blockely  Almshouse  and  his  administration 
of  reforms  and  improvements  in  this  vast  charity  brought  him 
into  conspicuous  notice  as  a  citizen.  He  published  the  first 
volume  of  the  Repository  in  Trenton,  N.  J.,  and  on  removal  to 
Philadelphia,  the  second  and  third  as  monthlies  in  that  city.  It 
closely  identified  him  with  the  Lay-Eepresentation  movement; 
it  was  first  publicly  broached  in  his  magazine,  and  he  stands  the 
unquestioned  lay  father  of  it.  His  pen  was  unremitting  in  its 
advocacy  through  the  Mutual  Eights,  and  other  sources.  He 
was  a  member  and  Secretary  of  the  Reform  Convention  of  1828, 
in  Baltimore,  and  of  1830.  For  this  participation  he  was  charged 
and  arraigned  before  the  Church,  but  such  was  the  purity  of  his 
character  and  the  excellence  of  his  reputation  that  the  charges 
were  dismissed,  so  that  he  did  not  have  the  honor  of  expulsion 
for  opinions'  sake  enjoyed  by  so  many  of  his  coadjutors.  Mean- 
while, he  did  much  other  literary  work,  commanding  an  elegant 
and  forcible  style,  wrote  much  for  the  People's  Advocate  of 
Philadelphia,  ranging  himself  always  on  the  side  of  popular 
liberty  and  purity  of  government.  He  assisted  in  the  publica- 
tion of  the  first  American  edition  of  Wesley's  Works ;  wrote  the 
article  on  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  Kay's  edition  of 
Buck's  "  Theological  Dictionary,"  and  much  other  editorial  work 
for  Methodist  periodicals,  the  editors  begging  him  not  to  use  his 
name,  such  Avas  the  bitter  prejudice  against  even  non-partisan 
articles,  if  known  to  be  from  the  pen  of  a  "  Radical "  Methodist. 
He  purchased  the  copyright  of  the  lives  of  John  and  Charles 
Wesley  by  Dr.  Whitehead,  issued  in  Boston,  Mass.,  in  1844, 
and  reissued  it  in  1845,  in  handsome  style  with  steel  engravings 
of  the  Wesleys,  and  an  Introduction  by  his  son,  T.  H.  Stockton, 
already  referred  to  in  the  first  volume.  Two  editions  were  struck 
off  and  sold,  and  yet  it  is  now  after  fifty  years  a  scarce  book, 
hierarchal  Methodism  having  frowned  upon  it  in  America  as 
oligarchic  Methodism  did  in  England.  In  the  great  cholera 
panic  of  1832  he  stood  to  his  post  at  the  almshouse,  while  offi- 
cials of  every  class  fled  the  city.  In  1828  he  married  his  second 
wife,  Emily  H.  Drean  of  Leesburg,  Va.  Of  her  children  one 
became  a  minister  and  missionary  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  another  is  Frank  R.  Stockton,  well  known  to  the 
periodical  and  book  literature  of  the  day.    He  had  broad  and 


LAY  BEFORM  INITIATED  BY  STOCKTON  31 


liberal  views  in  everything,  so  that  he  espoused  the  anti-restric- 
tive rule,  and  other  objections  of  his  son  Thomas  to  the  polity  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  defined  in  the  Constitution 
and  Discipline  of  this  Church  at  its  organization,  but  which  it  has 
since  outgrown  to  its  advantage.  In  1860,  in  the  seventy-fifth 
year  of  his  age,  he  removed  to  Burlington,  where  he  was  born,  to 
spend  his  declining  days.  But  on  the  3d  of  September,  1860,  he 
met  with  an  accident  by  the  backing  of  a  cart  against  him  on  a 
wharf  of  the  Delaware  which  fractured  his  thigh.  He  was  carried 
to  his  bed,  and  for  two  months  suffered  much  in  Christian 
patience,  and  on  the  20th  of  November,  with  his  family  around 
him,  peacefully  passed  away.  He  lies  buried  in  Burlington  near 
the  grave  of  his  father  and  his  first  wife.  In  1849  the  writer 
had  an  interview  with  him  at  the  home  of  Rev.  J.  T.  Ward  in 
Philadelphia.  He  was  tall,  spare,  erect,  and  of  commanding 
figure,  affable  yet  dignified,  courteous  yet  firm,  —  Love,  Truth, 
and  Right  were  written  upon  every  lineament.  Occasion  will  be 
had  often  to  refer  to  him  in  the  succeeding  pages. 

The  Wesleyan  Repository  and  Religious  Intelligencer  made  its 
appearance  as  a  semimonthly  periodical,  April  12,  1821,  printed 
at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  and  edited  by  William  S.  Stockton.  Its 
introduction  says :  "  We  intend  that  the  columns  of  our  paper 
shall  be  open  for  the  reception  of  communications  which  have  for 
their  object  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  good  of  mankind.  .  .  .  Our 
readers  are  informed  that  communications,  having  for  their  object 
the  improvement  of  church  discipline,  must  be  free  from  such 
expressions  as  are  frequently  dictated  by  an  overheated  zeal,  and 
sometimes  even  by  the  evil  passions.  If  free  from  evil  in  their 
design  and  tendency,  essays  on  forms  of  church  government  will 
be  freely  admitted  to  a  place  in  our  columns."  From  the  purpose 
thus  stated  and  qualified  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  peri- 
odical never  departed  in  its  three  years'  existence  despite  the 
calumnies  uttered  against  it.  Nicholas  Snethen's  biographer 
says :  "  All  its  correspondents,  I  believe,  except  one,  were 
Methodists ;  more  than  twenty  of  them  were  preachers,  but  four- 
teen at  least  were,  or  had  been,  itinerants.  .  .  .  Nicholas  Snethen, 
Ezekiel  Cooper,  James  Smith  (Baltimore),  Henry  B.  Bascom, 
Samuel  K.  Jennings,  Asa  Shinn,  and  others,  prominent  Reformers, 
came  in  later.  The  leading  writers,  however,  were  Nicholas 
Snethen  and  the  editor.  My  father's  name  is  connected  with 
more  than  fifty  articles,  but  Mr.  Stockton's  with  nearly  one 
hundred  and  fifty.    In  the  eighth  number  of  the  first  volume 


82 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


two  editorial  articles  on  ^Church  Government'  appeared.  In 
one  of  these  ^Lay  Delegation'  was  first  uttered."  Mr.  Snethen 
in  his  Introduction  to  his  "  Essays  on  Lay-Representation,"  thus 
refers  to  these  articles :  "  The  publication  of  these  broke  silence, 
and  to  break  silence  on  the  subject  of  church  government  in  those 
days  called  for  no  common  resolution.  But  the  credit,  not  of  a 
mere  beginner,  is  due  to  Mr.  Stockton  ;  his  efforts  in  behalf  of 
'  Lay  Representation '  were  unwearied,  and  knew  no  bounds  short 
of  necessity."  ^  Alluding  to  these  two  editorials,  Mr.  Stockton, 
in  1849,  said:  "These  two  editorials  were  the  first  direct 
assault  upon  the  M.  E.  Church  government.  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Snethen  that  I  had  brought  an  old  house  about  my  head." 

The  periodical  was  stanchly  Methodist,  and  gave  considerable 
space  to  its  foreign  missionary  work ;  it  was  pronounced  in  its 
temperance  and  anti-slavery  sentiments,  the  latter  class  of 
articles  written  principally  by  James  Smith.  The  two  on 
"  Church  Government "  by  Stockton  were  signed  "  A  Methodist," 
and  were  animadverted  upon  favorably  by  Snethen,  but  without 
signature.  Others  followed  Snethen,  assuming  various  pseudo- 
nyms. These  articles,  however,  made  up  but  a  small  portion 
of  each  number.  As  the  periodical  grew  in  circulation  it  was 
criticised  divergently,  the  friends  of  the  old  regime  not  being 
slow  in  discovering  "  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death "  in  these 
mild-tempered  discussions,  so  that  as  early  as  August,  1821,  the 
editor  said :  "  But  permit  us  with  all  possible  sincerity  to  say 
that  we  do  not  think  our  external  economy  is  so  perfect,  as  to 
make  it  necessary  for  any  one  to  deprive  writers  and  friends  of 
their  inherent  right  to  think,  speak,  write,  and  publish.  We  claim 
no  exemption  from  responsibility,  —  all  we  claim  is  the  privilege 
of  freemen,  of  Christians." 

All  the  writers  on  Reform  were  careful  from  the  beginning 
to  avow  that  under  no  circumstances  would  schism  be  encouraged 
—  they  meant  to  secure  changes  from  within.  Rev.  John  R. 
Williams,  a  local  minister  from 'Baltimore,  became  a  contributor 
after  nine  months,  and  speaking  for  himself  and  others,  says, 
"  Every  author  who  has  written  for  the  paper  has  explicitly  dis- 
avowed all  intention  to  revolutionize  or  divide  the  Society,  and 
there  is  not  a  paragraph  in  the  work  calculated  to  bring  about 
such  a  melancholy  state  of  things."  His  nom  de  p)lume  was 
"Amicus."  March  28,  1822,  Snethen  addressed  a  Memorial  to 
the  Philadelphia  Conference,  palling  upon  it  to  stand  by  liberal 
1  Frank  R.  Stockton  in  Colhouer's  "  Sketches  of  the  Founders." 


WRITERS  IN  THE  WESLETAN  REPOSITORY  33 

sentiments.  It  was  signed  "Thousands,"  and  probably  had  its 
effect  with  the  efforts  of  Cooper  to  carry  it  solidly  against 
M'Kendree  and  Soule.  In  the  same  number  Ezekiel  Cooper 
made  his  first  appearance  as  a  contributor  in  an  incidental  cor- 
rection of  Snethen  in  a  historical  matter  as  to  Beverly  Allen. 
He  signed  himself  "A  Methodist."  In  this  number  Hon.  P. 
B.  Hopper  of  Maryland  also  appeared  in  the  controversy. 

When  the  first  volume  closed  it  had  reached  perhaps  five  hun- 
dred subscribers,  and  this,  Snethen  says,  was  its  maximum  cir- 
culation. The  whole  of  the  three  volumes  in  my  possession  are 
verified  as  to  all  the  contributors  by  W.  S.  Stockton,  who  did  it 
in  a  series  of  articles  for  the  Western  Recorder,  February,  1850, 
and  his  own  original  copy,  which  found  its  way  into  Drew  Theo- 
logical Library  through  F.  R.  Stockton  in  the  first  two  volumes 
only,  with  his  marginal  annotations.  These  have  been  copied 
into  my  set,  so  that  when  authorship  is  spoken  of  in  these  pages 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  verification.  As  the  periodical  very 
soon  came  under  ban  it  was  largely  subscribed  for  secretly  and 
surreptitiously  circulated.  After  seventy  years  it  seems  impos- 
sible to  realize  it,  and  the  modern  school  of  preachers  and  lay- 
men must  marvel  at  the  fact.  Yet  every  number  was  read  by 
many  others  and  became  a  nucleus  of  illumination,  and  a  centre 
of  Reform.  The  bishops  and  not  a  few  of  the  presiding  elders 
found  access  to  it.  Robert,  the  gifted  son  of  John  Emory,  is 
careful  to  declare  in  his  effort  to  vindicate  his  father  from  being 
a  Radical "  that  he  was  not  a  subscriber.  But  his  brother-in- 
law.  Dr.  Sellers,  was,  and  a  Radical  contributor,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Emory  carefully  read  every  number  of  it ;  for, 
during  its  publication  he  was  recognized  as  a  Reformer  by  its 
friends,  and  was  in  their  confidence  fully. 

The  second  volume  of  the  Repository  came  to  its  close  with  the 
addition  of  notable  writers.  Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  who  was  a  sub- 
scriber, wrote  one  article  on  the  "  Relation  of  the  Children  to  the 
Church."  He,  like  Emory,  was  recognized  as  a  Reformer,  and 
had  their  confidence.  J.  G.  Watson  of  Philadelphia  became  a 
contributor.  Henry  B.  Bascom  became  a  subscriber  and  entered 
the  lists  as  a  bold  advocate  of  Reform,  while  "  Baltimore  "  James 
Smith  wrote  with '  cogency  for  the  new  measures.  Snethen, 
always  in  the  van,  with  Stockton  and  Hopper,  Richard  Sneath, 
J.  R.  Williams,  and  Gideon  Davis  were  pressing  the  polemics  to 
the  very  gates.  But  such  was  the  fear  of  detection  as  supporters 
of  it  that  the  editor  and  proprietor  was  often  straitened  for 

VOL.  II  D 


34 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


means  to  keep  it  floating,  suffering  much,  pecuniary  loss.  Its 
literary  character  was  high,  and  its  mechanical  appearance  first 
class.  All  wrote  anonymously,  as  it  was  well  understood  that 
open  support  of  it  meant  social,  business,  and  ecclesiastical 
ostracism. 

The  third  volume  was  meaty  and  advanced,  but  the  same 
amenities  of  debate  are  observed,  and  for  polemical  papers  stand 
to-day  specimens  of  Christian  discussion.  This  is  no  random 
statement;  let  the  pages  be  examined,  and  the  impartial  mind 
of  to-day  will  be  surprised  to  know  that  these  animadversions 
brought  upon  the  authors  the  charge  of  "enemies  of  Methodism." 
Rev.  Cornelius  Springer  of  Ohio  wrote  a  series  of  articles  ad- 
dressed to  the  senior  Bishop,  under  the  pseudonym  "Cincinna- 
tus,"  which  excited  great  attention,  as  they  were  construed  as  a 
personal  attack  —  wherefore  only  the  prejudiced  could  see.  And 
now  was  revived  a  question  aside  from  the  primal  purpose  of  all 
who  had  written  to  this  date,  — Lay-Representation  pure  and 
simple  as  the  issue, —  the  local  preachers'  contest.  The  Balti- 
more District  Conference,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  inchoate  Re- 
formers, issued  a  circular  to  like  districts  throughout  the  United 
States,  calling  for  larger  recognition.  It  was  signed  by  Samuel 
K.  Jennings,  Alexander  McCaine  (who  had  retired  from  the  itin- 
erancy and  was  school-teaching),  and  James  R.  Williams.  The 
agitation  was  continued  through  the  volume,  space  being  given 
to  the  matter,  until,  as  Snethen  put  it,  a  triangular  warfare  was 
inaugurated.  As  all  of  them  were  friends  of  lay-representation 
also,  it  was  impossible  to  discriminate  against  them.  There  was 
also  published  a  correspondence  between  Rev.  Jesse  Head  of 
Kentucky  and  Bishop  M'Kendree  about  a  certain  arbitrary  act  of 
administration  by  which  he  was  expelled  the  Conference  under 
aggravations  sanctit)ned  by  the  three  bishops.  It  led  to  a  seces- 
sion under  a  Discipline  which  recognized  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  a  separation  of  the  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive 
powers  of  government,  but  the  particulars  demand  no  further 
space  except  to  note  a  fact  of  history  not  elsewhere  found.  It 
is  probable  that  the  movement  finally  merged  into  that  of  1827-30. 
Alexander  McCaine  made  an  effort  to  secure  publication  of  the 
local  preachers'  circular  in  the  Methodist  Magazine,  but  did  not 
succeed;  the  publishers  printed  on  the  cover  of  the  magazine  in 
September,  1823,  a  standing  notice  that  nothing  would  be  ad- 
mitted of  a  controversial  character,  "which  go  to  disturb  the 
peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church."    All  petitioners  were  re- 


PARTISAN  COURSE  OF  METHODIST  MAGAZINE  35 


f erred  to  the  General  Conference  for  redress  of  grievances.  Sub- 
sequently, however,  its  columns  were  freely  used  in  opposition 
to  the  Reformers  of  every  class.  This  refusal  of  a  hearing 
aroused  the  lion  in  McCaine,  and  he  became  a  subscriber  and 
contributor  to  the  Repository.  In  contrast  its  pages  were  open 
to  its  opponents,  and  several  availed  themselves  of  the  privilege. 

Now  appeared  a  series  of  letters  from  Snethen  addressed  to 
Reformers  throughout  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in  which 
he  deprecated  the  sending  of  delegates  to  the  ensuing  General 
Conference  as  premature,  insisting  absolutely  that  there  should 
be  no  schism  and  holding  to  extreme  conservative  ground,  sug- 
gesting petitions,  and  in  default  of  a  favorable  hearing  the  first 
organized  movement.  As  out  of  it  after  came  the  Union  Socie- 
ties, his  words  must  be  quoted:  "But  if  they  remain  inflexible, 
that  we  then  proceed  to  organize  ourselves  into  a  kind  of  patriotic 
societies,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining,  and  securing  to  ourselves, 
the  right  of  ecclesiastical  suffrage,  and  acquiring  a  knowledge  of 
our  numbers,  views,  and  proceedings;  and  that  so  soon  as  we 
become  sufficiently  numerous  and  united,  we  signify  to  Travelling 
Preachers  our  free,  sovereign  will,  and  let  them  know  that  the 
time  is  come  for  them  to  yield  to  necessity,  as  they  would  not  to 
justice  and  reason;  we  may  add  that  if  they  persist,  all  the  blame 
and  all  the  evil  of  dividing  themselves  from  the  majority  of  the 
Church  must  be  upon  their  own  heads."  Thus  is  outlined  a 
procedure  which  subsequent  events  made  it  wise  to  follow,  as  the 
only  alternative  for  Reformers, —  a  procedure  so  reasonable,  con- 
servative, and  within  the  privilege  of  Methodists,  that  it  does 
not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  Snethen  that  expedients  under  cover 
of  law  would  be  found  by  the  episcopacy  not  only  to  neutralize 
these  methods  for  securing  reforms  from  within  the  Church,  but 
to  visit  upon  those  who  adopted  the  procedure  unmerited  punish- 
ment,—  the  extreme  penalty  of  ecclesiastical  law, — expulsion. 
The  dominating  influence  of  Snethen  held  in  check  those  who 
would  have  precipitated  separation  under  the  aggravations  of 
delay,  denial,  and  accusation  of  moral  turpitude.  In  this  at 
least  there  was  concert  of  opinion  and  action  among  the  Re- 
formers :  to  keep  within  their  privilege  along  the  lines  laid  out 
by  Snethen,  to  petition  and  remonstrate,  to  cooperate,  and  thus 
enlarge  the  area  of  intelligent  apprehension  of  their  aims  by  peace- 
able discussion  and  the  use  of  the  press  at  their  own  charges. 

The  writings  of  "  Baltimore  "  James  Smith  in  these  volumes  of 
the  Repository  attracted  particular  attention  for  their  dialectical 


36 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


lucidity  and  mastery  of  facts.  He  had  been  a  member  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1808,  and  of  the  first  delegated  Conference 
of  1812,  participated  in  the  debates,  and  fully  understood  the 
merits  of  the  pending  issues.  In  1820  he  was  stationed  at  old 
St.  George's  with  Ezekiel  Cooper  and  the  Philadelphia  James 
Smith,  so  called  to  distinguish  them,  and  in  1821  he  was  super- 
annuated and  located  in  Queen  Anne's  County,  Md.,  where  he 
had  the  association  of  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper,  Dr.  Sellers,  and  inci- 
dentally of  John  Emory,  and  the  views  he  expressed  were  prob- 
ably shared  by  all  of  them  as  brother  Reformers.  He  was  the 
author  of  a  series  of  articles  running  through  several  volumes  of 
the  Repository  on  the  Constitution.  The  fifth  of  the  series  is  in 
the  August  number  of  volume  third,  and  so  important  is  it  that 
citations  from  it  are  demanded  as  settling  the  question  it  dis- 
cusses beyond  any  man's  power  of  successful  controversion.  It 
is  commended  specially  to  all  the  Constitutionalists  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  South,  of  the  Dr.  Tigert  type,  and  all  the  anti- 
Constitutionalists  of  the  Methodist  Church,  North,  and  as  answer- 
ing their  recent  quest  for  a  "Constitution,"  but  not  yet  found. 

Smith,  after  carefully  laying  his  premises,  thus  concludes: 
"The  question,  then,  is  again  reduced  to  this  shape,  viz. :  Were 
the  preachers  who  were  members  of  the  General  Conference  of 
1808  a  convention  to  frame  and  adopt  a  Constitution  for  the 
Church,  or  not?  If  the  answer  be  given  in  the  affirmative,  the 
fact  must  be  assumed  in  one  of  two  shapes:  either,  first,  that 
the  whole  body  of  the  elders,  who  had  a  right  to  be  members  of 
that  Conference,  were  the  whole  of  the  community,  in  law;  or, 
secondly,  that  the  Annual  Conferences,  by  election,  invested  them 
with  powers  as  their  representatives,  to  frame  and  adopt  a  Con- 
stitution for  them,  according  to  their  own  judgment,  which  should 
without  any  confirmatory  act  of  these  Annual  Conferences  be 
obligatory  on  themselves  and  the  Church.  Now,  if  the  first  of 
these  assumptions  be  correct,  why  did  the  presiding  Bishop,  on 
his  last  tour  round  to  the  Annual  Conferences  previous  to  the 
General  Conference  of  1808,  propose  to  the  Annual  Conferences 
to  instruct  the  preachers  who  might  go  to  the  General  Conference 
to  adopt  an  order  that  representatives  should  compose  the  General 
Conference  in  future,  instead  of  all  the  elders  who  might  choose 
to  go?  If  the  whole  community  (in  law)  went  to  that  General 
Conference,  why  impart  such  instruction  or  ask  such  permission? 
But,  secondly,  how  could  these  elders  who  were  expected  to  go 
to  that  General  Conference  be  invested  with  powers  to  form  a 


JAMES  smith's  irrefutable  ARGUMENT  37 


Constitution  whose  operations  should  limit  the  legislative  powers 
of  future  General  Conferences,  when  nothing  was  mentioned  to 
the  Annual  Conferences  by  the  Bishop,  who  proposed  the  measure, 
about  a  Constitution  which  should  have  the  effect  so  to  limit  the 
powers  of  future  General  Conferences,  nor  was  the  subject  in  any- 
way agitated  at  all.  But  only  to  adopt  an  order  or  so  change  the 
government  as  to  send  fewer  members  to  the  General  Conference, 
in  future  to  prevent  embarrassment  arising  from  so  many  travel- 
ling preachers  to  and  from  General  Conference,  from  remote  parts 
of  the  country;  and  to  secure  to  the  Annual  Conferences  at  a 
distance  from  the  seat  of  the  General  Conference,  at  the  same 
time,  a  more  equitable  and  proportionate  influence  in  the  body 
which  makes  rules  for  all.  Nothing,  that  we  know  of,  was  said 
about  a  Constitution  to  limit  the  powers  of  future  General  Con- 
ferences, but  merely  to  adopt  an  order,  by  a  majority  of  that 
General  Conference,  to  send  representatives  in  future  invested 
with  legislative  powers,  instead  of  all  the  elders.  If  any  of  the 
acts  of  the  General  Conference  of  1808  can  lay  claim  to  the 
character  of  a  Constitution,  we  conceive  it  is  that  which  bears  on 
the  point  of  constituting  delegates;  because,  on  this  point,  the 
Annual  Conferences  appear  to  have  been  consulted,  and  perhaps 
may  have  given  consent  and  instruction  on  it;  but  as  they  seem 
to  have  been  consulted  on  nothing  else,  and  gave  authority  to  do 
no  more,  the  whole  of  the  restrictive  articles  which  go  to  abridge 
the  legislative  powers  of  future  General  Conferences  are  purely 
gratuitous,  and  have  no  restrictive  authority  whatever,  until  that 
authority  shall  be  given  them  by  the  Annual  Conferences,  adopt- 
ing them  as  shown  in  our  third  essay  on  this  subject.  But  if  the 
Annual  Conferences  did,  previously  to  1808,  authorize  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1808  to  impose  a  change  on  the  essential 
principles  of  the  government,  so  as  to  make  all  the  General  Con- 
ferences after  that  date  delegated  bodies,  instead  of  consulting 
all  the  elders,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  that  order  is  as  authori- 
tative as  any  other  principle  in  our  usages.  But  if  the  Annual 
Conferences  invested  that  General  Conference  with  no  powers  to 
make  any  other  change  in  the  government,  which  was  the  fact, 
then  all  that  they  did  further  is  but  gratuitous  assumption,  and 
of  course  is  of  no  constitutional  authority.  Whether  the  Annual 
Conferences  did  properly  invest  that  General  Conference  with 
powers  to  make  even  this  change  or  not,  we  are  not  prepared  to 
say.  But  if  they  did  not  invest  the  General  Conference  of  1808 
with  the  powers  to  make  the  future  General  Conferences  dele- 


38 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


gated  bodies,  I  do  not  conceive  that  their  having  done  so  makes 
them  legitimately  such.  And  if  so,  then  in  our  opinion  things 
stand  as  they  did  before  1808.  But  if  they  did  authorize  that 
General  Conference  to  make  the  future  General  Conferences  dele- 
gated bodies,  we  are  confident  they  did  not  authorize  them  to 
restrict  their  future  legislation  within  certain  bounds  (such  as 
the  restrictive  articles  specify),  either  specifically  or  impliedly; 
for  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  invested  with  a  power  to 
form  a  Constitution  on  general  terms,  but  only  to  do  a  specific 
thing,  i.e.  to  reduce  the  number  of  members  of  future  General 
Conferences.  But  here  we  would  remark  that  that  investiture 
was  not  of  a  nature  to  authorize  them  to  make  a  Constitution, 
which  implies  the  giving  of  certain  powers  to  certain  function- 
aries, as  well  as  restricting  those  functionaries  in  the  exercise  of 
those  powers.  But  implied  only  a  restriction  of  certain  powers, 
formerly  held  by  many,  to  a  fewer  number,  supposing  the  old 
Constitution  (or  order  of  things)  to  remain,  wherein  that  Con- 
ference had  not  been  instructed  to  alter  it.  And  as  their  instruc- 
tions went  no  further,  and  attempted  to  restrict  the  power  of 
future  General  Conferences  in  a  way  that  they  were  not  author- 
ized to  do,  their  acts  in  this  matter  were  assumed  (being  unau- 
thorized), and  are  of  no  authority  whatever  as  a  Constitution, 
according  to  American  doctrine,  which  at  the  time  appears  to  be 
the  doctrine  of  reason.  Hence  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that 
the  making  of  the  General  Conferences  in  future  a  delegated 
body,  instead  oi  all  the  elders,  was  a  legitimate  act,  because  it 
seems  to  have  been  authorized;  but  the  acts  which  go  to  abridge 
their  legislative  powers  are  not  obligatory,  because  unauthor- 
ized." 

This  article  and  others  were  signed  Philonomos,"  though  he 
wrote  under  other  pseudonyms.  It  literally  tears  to  shreds  all 
arguments  for  a  Constitution  in  the  restrictive  articles,  as  having 
even  Annual  Conference  consent.  So  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  was  compelled  by  the  exigency  of  1844  to  acknowledge 
it  and  so  the  civil  courts  have  decided,  and  so  it  is  that  the  great 
Church  named  is  floundering  to-day  in  the  uncertainties  of  abso- 
lute negations;  "Eules  and  Eegulations"  are  all  that  it  has,  and 
these  are  liable  to  alteration,  addition,  or  abrogation  at  the  will 
of  every  sovereign  General  Conference.  The  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  under  a  similar  logical  necessity,  in  the 
Bishop  Andrew  case  adhered  to  the  old  constitutional,  traditional 
theory,  the  delight  of  Asbury,  M'Kendree,  and  Soule,  with  the 


ELDER,  LOCAL  PREACHER,  AND  LAY  QUESTIONS  39 

right  of  episcopal  veto  to  this  day  on  measures  deemed  by  them 
unconstitutional.  It  is  phenomenal,  however,  that  a  little  more 
than  a  score  of  years  after,  their  General  Conference  of  1866 
enacted  a  violation  of  one  of  the  restrictive  articles,  i.e.  the  Con- 
stitution, "  The  General  Conference  shall  be  composed  of  delegates 
from  the  Annual  Conferences,"  and  as  these  were  composed  from 
"the  beginning"  of  preachers  itinerant  only,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  locality  and  the  laity,  in  that  it  made  provision  for  an  equal 
delegation  of  laymen  in  the  General  Conference,  and  four  dele- 
gates from  each  presiding  elder's  district  in  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences. Happily  for  the  liberal  advance  of  this  Church  and  its 
internal  peace  there  was  no  Bishop  to  "  veto  "  the  innovation,  two- 
thirds  voted  for  it  in  the  General  Conference,  and  on  its  reference 
to  the  Annual  Conferences  they  by  a  three-fourths  vote  adopted 
it.  The  vote  in  the  General  Conference  on  a  final  test  was 
ninety-seven  yeas  and  forty-one  nays.  These  forty-one  were 
evidently  "Bourbons,"  who  believed  it  "unconstitutional."  The 
large  majority  saw,  however,  that  it  was  an  emergency  that  de- 
manded a  waiver  of  the  constitutional  myths,  and  this  Church  is 
awaiting  the  emergency  that  will  repudiate  the  Asbury-M'Ken- 
dree-Soule  Episcopacy  as  an  "  order  "  with  its  veto  power.  In 
its  proper  chronological  place  more  will  be  said  of  this  lay- 
delegation  feature  in  the  Church,  South. 

The  Repository  fairly  bristled  with  incandescent  contributions 
as  to  their  magnetic  logic  and  contagious  enthusiasm  for  Reform 
for  the  last  nine  months  of  its  brilliant  career.  It  developed  the 
triangular  contention,  however,  already  referred  to,  the  local 
preachers  pushing  their  claims  to  recognition,  not  content  to  wait 
until  they  could  be  secured  by  the  success  of  the  lay-representa- 
tion movement  of  Snethen,  Smith,  and  Cooper,  with  what  damage 
to  the  cause  itself  will  be  presently  seen.  Dr.  Jennings,  as  a 
leader  of  the  local  preachers  and  a  lay-representation ist,  made  his 
appearance  in  the  August  number  on  the  refusal  of  the  Methodist 
Magazine  to  publish  their  circular.  The  Reform  movement  now 
was  pressed  along  three  separate  lines :  the  Elder  question,  the 
Local  Preacher  question,  and  the  Lay  question.  Like  the  Refor- 
mation under  Luther,  there  were  party  leaders  with  divergent 
views,  until  the  cause  was  embarrassed  to  the  verge  of  defeat. 
Snethen  and  Stockton  saw  the  shoals  and  heard  the  distant 
breakers,  and  admonished  accordingly,  and  by  their  wise  manage- 
ment the  ship  was  kept  off  shore.  Five  hundred  copies  of  the 
Repository  found  their  silent  way  to  as  many  ardent  supporters, 


40 


HISTORY  OF  METUODIST  REFORM 


and  these  copies  found  numerous  readers,  so  that  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  three  thousand  sympathizers  were  scattered  through  the 
Conferences  and  among  the  laity.  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and 
Cincinnati  were  great  centres.  In  the  latter  city,  claiming  the 
revolutionary  right  of  peaceful  assemblage  for  redress  of  griev- 
ances, a  public  meeting  was  held  of  the  laity,  on  the  19th  of 
August,  1823,  William  Disney,  President,  and  John  Forbes, 
Secretary,  and  a  circular  was  addressed  the  "Members  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  throughout  the  United  States," 
calmly  and  masterfully  reviewing  their  ignoring  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church.  It  may  be  found  on  pages  190-193  of  the 
Repository  for  1823.  It  is  denominated  "  a  large  and  respectable 
meeting  of  the  members,"  and  the  collateral  evidence  is  that  it 
composed  the  very  cream  of  Methodism  in  that  city.  Indeed,  it 
was  never  questioned,  even  by  its  opponents,  that  this  was  its 
character  wherever  a  nucleus  was  found ;  it  largely  composed  the 
brains,  piety,  and  social  force  of  Methodism. 

In  default  of  other  vehicles  the  secular  press  was  sometimes 
employed  to  reach  the  people,  and  distant  points  found  letter-link 
connection  beyond  what  the  Repository  supplied.  The  bishops, 
the  elders,  and  for  the  most  part  the  itinerants,  set  themselves 
against  it  diligently,  profiting  by  every  unadvised  word  and  every 
lapse  of  order  and  evei^  influence  that  power  and  patronage  could 
evoke  to  frustrate  the  movement  and  the  movers.  In  a  "  Voice 
from  the  West,"  an  article  reviewing  the  obstructions  used  to 
prevent  the  circulation  of  the  Repository,  signed  "  Cincinnatus, 
Jr.,"  attributed  to  H.  B.  Bascom,  though  not  so  identified  by 
Stockton,  and  bearing  every  ear-mark  of  his  composition,  a  fact  is 
mentioned  at  which  one  knows  not  whether  to  laugh  or  cry :  "  Two 
elders  arose  immediately  in  succession,  and  admonished  the 
people,  and  strove  to  guard  them  against  the  prevailing  errors 
of  the  day;  after  which  a  respectable  young  minister  arose,  and, 
as  he  thought,  drew  from  his  pocket  a  single  number  of  the 
Repository,  dashed  it  on  the  floor  in  the  presence  of  the  people, 
and  with  gushing  tears  exclaimed,  *  There  is  the  accursed  thing! ' 
but  it  so  happened  that  while  he  was  attempting  to  be  so  patheti- 
cally sublime,  he  unintentionally  drew  from  his  pocket  with  the 
number  before  mentioned  the  discipline  of  our  Church,  which 
shared  the  same  indignity  and  became  the  object  of  the  same 
anathema." 

A  series  now  appeared,  "Letters  on  Church  Government,"  by 
"  Martin  Luther,"  Alexander  McCaine.    They  are  models  of  con- 


EZEKIEL  cooper's  REFORM  PLAN 


41 


troversial  writing,  though  incisive  and  unsparing  in  logic,  and  as 
the  writer  wishes  this  to  be  believed,  insomuch  as  McCaine  was 
"  outlawed  "  for  his  contributions  to  Reform  by  the  General  Con- 
ference of  1828,  he  has  arranged  that  these  volumes  of  the 
Repository  shall  always  be  accessible  to  any  honest  inquirer. 
And  subject  to  the  same  test,  it  is  asserted  that  this  third  volume 
is  characterized  with  most  of  the  features  that  gave  imperishable 
fame  to  the  "Letters  of  Junius"  and  the  Addison  papers  in  the 
'^Spectator."  It  will  not  be  forgotten  that  the  sticklers  for  the 
old  forms  and  absolute  methods  had  raised  this  wind;  they  were 
alarmed  at  the  signs  of  the  coming  whirlwind.  Gideon  Davis,  a 
liberally  educated  layman  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  appeared  as  a 
polished  and  trenchant  writer  under  the  signature  "Waters." 
Now  came  a  writer  with  the  nom  de  plume  of  "  Anthroposophy," 
and  later  on  other  articles  signed  "A  Methodist;"  the  former 
introduced  the  "Question  of  Lay-delegation,"  and  the  latter  "The 
Outlines  of  a  Proposed  Plan  for  a  Lay-delegation ; "  they  were 
from  the  gifted  pen  of  Ezekiel  Cooper  of  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
ference. It  outlines  a  plan  for  equal  representation  —  and  this 
is  the  term  he  employs  with  propriety  in  the  body  of  it  —  in  the 
General  Conference,  with  careful  provision  for  the  election  of  the 
laymen  in  primary  assemblies  of  the  male  membership,  and  there- 
fore honestly  representative  of  them.  The  positions  taken  by 
him  are  unanswerable,  and  broad  as  the  ground  taken  by  Snethen. 
A  few  concluding  sentences  of  the  second  article  will  exhibit  its 
animus :  "  The  Laity  and  Local  Brethren  are  awake  to  their  rights 
and  privileges;  they  cannot  be  by  any  opiates  lulled  to  sleep 
again;  nor  by  any  weapons  be  driven  from  the  ground  of  their 
claim  and  demand,  as  an  inalienable  right.  The  sooner  it  is 
yielded  the  better;  for  be  ye  well  assured  that  Lay-delegation 
must  ultimately  be  adopted,  or  the  cause  of  the  Itinerancy,  and 
union  and  peace,  will  be  greatly  endangered,  if  not  ruined  and 
destroyed.  United  we  stand,  divided  we  fall."  In  a  later  article 
signed  "  Philo-Episcopos,"  he  cites  the  language  of  M'Kendree 
in  1792,  already  twice  given,  "  It  is  an  insult  to  my  understand- 
ing," etc.  The  plan  of  Cooper  was  reviewed  and  criticised  by 
Jennings,  McCaine,'  and  Williams  because  it  did  not  provide  at 
once  for  proper  recognition  of  the  local  preachers.  Stockton 
endeavored  to  allay  the  difference  in  an  article  signed  "  A  Lay- 
man," and  warned  the  locality,  "Let  us  not  furnish  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  travelling  ministry  with  any  pretext  for  saying, 
'  We  cannot  agree  to  legislate  to  you  your  rights,  because  of  your 


42 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


own  disagreements.'  "  So  the  Luthers  of  this  ecclesiastical  Ref- 
ormation had  their  Erasmuses,  and  as  the  leading  lights  of  the 
doctrinal  Reformation  differed  as  to  the  scope  and  method  to  be 
observed,  so  now  the  strong  individualities  developed  could  not 
agree  in  the  details,  though  fundamentals  were  clear  enough  to 
them  all.  It  was  the  only  bond  that  held  them  together,  and 
that  they  did  hold  together  is  in  proof  that  fundamentals  were 
involved;  the  personal  equation  of  each  leader  was  finally  lost  in 
them,  and  made  the  Reform  so  unlike  the  secession  of  O'Kelly, 
which  it  resembled  in  nothing,  that  the  principles  lived  and  are 
the  issues  of  to-day  in  all  the  Methodisms,  and  are  surely  mould- 
ing them  into  conformity  to  what  Snethen,  Shinn,  Stockton,  and 
Cooper  taught. 

Ezekiel  Cooper  did  not  further  elaborate  his  Plan  as  called  for; 
it  was  clear-cut  and  distinctive,  and  has  the  merit  of  having 
furnished  the  foundation  principles  on  which  the  Constitution  and 
Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  were  subsequently 
built;  but  he  did  review  in  an  exhaustive  and  masterful  manner, 
at  the  request  of  the  Local  Preachers'  Association  of  Philadelphia, 
the  criticisms  of  Jennings,  McCaine,  and  Williams.  The  claim 
they  set  up  of  an  equal  l-epresentation  in  the  General  Conference 
with  the  Travelling  preachers  and  the  Laity  was  not  entertained 
by  the  Local  preachers  as  a  class,  as  is  plain  from  the  articles  in 
the  Repository  at  the  time.  Their  dictum  was  even  repudiated 
by  the  Baltimore  Local  Preachers'  Association,  from  which  it 
professed  to  emanate,^  but  the  introduction  of  this  element 
seriously  and  needlessly,  as  will  be  seen,  complicated  the  situa- 
tion, wrought  irreparable  damage  to  the  cause  of  Reform,  and 
brought  the  issues  to  the  General  Conference  of  1824,  with  its 
advocates  presenting  a  divided  front. 

McCaine  concluded  his  letters  addressed  to  the  bishops,  and  in 
ending  says:  "I  have  studied  all  along  to  avoid  personalities, 
knowing  and  feeling  that  respect  is  due  to  you,  to  the  Church, 
to  the  public,  to  the  subject,  and  to  myself.  If  after  all  I  have 
expressed  myself  in  an  objectionable  manner,  let  it  be  pointed 
out,  and  if  the  subject  be  not  injured  by  the  alteration,  it  shall 
be  altered.  I  have  now  done  what  I  felt  to  be  a  duty,  and  sub- 
scribe myself  with  great  respect  your  brother  in  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  Martin  Luther."  It  proved  him,  up  to  this  stage  of 
the  discussion  at  least,  a  Christian  gentleman  in  controversy,  and 

iThey  were  the  "Committee  of  Correspondence"  for  that  Association,  and 
spoke  for  it  iu  this  capacity  only. 


CALL  FOR  CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION 


43 


aggravates  the  invidious  treatment  he  afterward  received  from 
the  authorities,  though  it  was  an  unwitting  mode  of  their  un- 
willing confession  that  his  arguments  were  unanswerable.  Rome 
made  the  same  disposition  of  Huss ;  as  he  could  neitlier  be  silenced 
nor  refuted,  one  method  was  left, —  "burn  the  heretic!  " 

The  West  Jersey  District  Conference  addressed  a  Memorial  to 
the  General  Conference  asking  that  a  Convention  of  the  Church 
might  be  called  to  agree  upon  a  Constitution,  a  method  of  adjust- 
ing the  legal  and  logical  and  factual  difficulties  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  which  has  been  over  and  over  again  since  that 
time  suggested ;  and  now  that  the  Church  is  still  at  its  endeavor 
to  "find  a  Constitution,"  despite  the  nugatory  labors  of  the  High 
Commission  appointed  for  the  purpose  by  the  General  Conference 
of  1888,  it  has  been  proposed,  as  late  as  this  year  of  our  Lord 
1894,  through  the  JSfew  York  Christian  Advocate,  by  an  influential 
layman  of  the  Church.  What  a  happy  deliverance  such  a  pro- 
cedure would  be  out  of  the  errors  of  1784  and  1808,  and  for  that 
of  1844!  Snethen  and  Stockton  and  James  Smith  of  Baltimore 
continued  to  use  their  offices  to  conciliate  the  Local  preachers  who 
were  so  insistent,  the  last  ably  pointing  out  that  the  ensuing 
General  Conference,  even  if  disposed  calmly  to  consider  the  peti- 
tions of  the  Reformers,  that  its  right  to  legislate  in  their  favor 
would  demand  attention ;  if  the  enactments  of  1808  were  a  Con- 
stitution, then  action  would  be  barred  by  it,  and  if  not,  then  a 
Convention  might  have  to  be  called  to  give  it  such  investiture,  so 
that  he  was  not  hopeful  of  action,  and  drops  this  caution,  "  And 
as  we  hope  it  is  the  wish  of  all  to  banish  ecclesiastical  controversy 
from  the  ranks  of  Methodism,  we  wish  to  see  a  course  pursued 
more  likely  to  effect  that  truly  desirable  object." 

Bascom  appears  again  "From  the  West,"  in  scathing  review 
of  the  presiding  elder  Greenbury  R.  Jones,  of  the  Scioto  District, 
Ohio.  Jones  replies  at  length,  and  is  given  space,  be  it  noted, 
in  this  magazine  devoted  to  free  discussion,  and  then  in  rejoinder 
he  was  pulverized  by  four  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  who  among  other  delectable  bits  of  information  disclose 
the  fact  that  said  Jones  had  averred  in  the  heat  of  a  discussion 
on  Reform  that  "  he  would  spill  blood  rather  than  submit  to  such 
innovations  as  are  contemplated  by  the  friends  of  Reform."  The 
burden  of  the  petitions  prepared  and  sent  to  the  ensuing  Gen- 
eral Conference  from  meetings  of  the  members  and  from  Local 
Preachers'  Associations  called  for  a  Convention  as  the  best  ex- 
pedient for  harmonizing  and  settling  the  Church  on  a  secure 


44 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


foundation,  while  the  temper  and  spirit  of  these  petitions  may  be 
judged  from  the  specimens  which  are  found  in  the  Repository ; 
and  in  view  of  the  heat  and  distemper  engendered  by  the  con- 
troversy, it  is  complimentary  to  the  Christian  forbearance  of  the 
Eeformers  that  they  state  their  case  with  such  moderation.  The 
documents  are  extant  and  open  to  investigation.  Conspicuous 
for  its  moderation  and  respectful  phrasing  is  the  Memorial  of  the 
Baltimore  District  Conference. 

"  Cincinnatus,''  Rev.  Cornelius  Springer  of  the  West,  continued 
to  use  his  pen  to  the  close  of  the  third  volume.  In  his  last  article 
he  furnishes  a  chapter  of  facts  easily  paralleled  in  other  sections 
of  the  Church,  and  the  citation  of  it  will  answer  for  all.  "  In 
the  administration  of  discipline  over  the  lay-members,  high- 
handed measures  have  frequently  been  pursued,  such  as  burning 
or  tearing  up  class  papers,  and  by  this  one  sweeping  act  turning 
out  of  the  Church  the  whole  class  at  once,  scratching  off  the 
names  of  respectable  members  from  the  class  roll,  and  thereby 
expelling  them  without  the  formalities  of  a  trial.  I  have  known 
instances  of  a  Travelling  Preacher  preferring  charges  against 
members  for  censuring  his  administration ;  and  after  picking  his 
own  jury,  and  becoming  his  own  judge,  to  exercise  the  Church 
censures  against  those  who  dared  to  find  fault  with  his  doings. 
Another  case  I  know,  where  an  Itinerant  Preacher  preferred  a 
charge  of  heresy  against  a  local  preacher  of  respectable  standing, 
and  who,  previous  to  his  expulsion,  sustained  an  unimpeachable 
moral  and  religious  character.  A  committee  of  the  delinquent's 
peers  were  summoned  to  sit  in  judgment  on  his  case.  They 
brought  in  a  verdict  of  'Not  guilty.'  But  the  ruling  spirit  was 
much  displeased  at  the  decision,  and  he  arbitrarily  appealed  (I 
say  the  appeal  was  arbitrary  because  the  discipline  allows  none 
in  such  a  case.  It  is  the  obvious  intention  of  that  rule  on  the 
subject  of  the  trial  of  local  preachers  to  prevent  the  travelling 
ministry,  should  any  be  so  disposed,  from  oppressing  local 
brethren)  the  case  to  the  Quarterly  Meeting  Conference;  and  his 
majesty,  the  presiding  elder,  took  jurisdiction  thereon,  and 
through  the  united  influence  of  these  two  managing  geniuses  the 
heretic  was  hurled  out  of  the  Church,  and  its  curses  fulminated 
after  him.  The  consequences  of  these  proceedings  were  that  tliey 
opened  the  way  for  a  wider  spread  and  a  more  deeply  rooted 
heresy  than  ever,  and  they  also  engendered  party  feeling  and 
schism  in  many  a  breast  where  such  never  before  existed.  And, 
sir,  instances  have  not  been  wanting  where  the  ministry  have 


SPECIMEN  ARBITRARY  ACT 


45 


preferred  charges  against  the  lay  department  for  reading  and 
supporting  your  Depository." 

The  controversy  was  not  slow  in  developing  that  species  of  the 
human  invertebrate  known  popularly  as  the  trimmer,  both  among 
the  membership  and  the  ministry.  This  moral  infirmity  appears 
whenever  the  issue  is  between  Principle  and  Power,  and  in  this 
history  is  constantly  repeating  itself,  both  in  the  State  and  the 
Church.  Quite  a  large  number  of  the  travelling  preachers  espoused 
the  lay  cause,  especially  in  the  centres  of  agitation,  and  so  with  the 
laity,  but  there  were  great  sections  of  the  Church  into  which  the 
light  had  never  penetrated ;  the  means  of  promulgation  were  so 
circumscribed  and  the  avenues  so  jealously  watched  that  in  the 
quadrennium  up  to  1824,  while  the  Reformers  constituted  a  re- 
spectable body  as  to  numbers,  and  eminently  so  as  to  standing, 
they  were  an  insignificant  minority,  if  their  cause  had  to  be 
judged  by  this  criterion  —  and  so  judged  it  was  by  the  Episcopal 
powers.  Even  this  minority  was  put  to  a  test  that  few  were  able 
to  withstand.  The  test  was  well  described  by  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton: "In  the  general  course  of  human  nature,  a  power  over  a 
man's  substance  amounts  to  a  power  over  his  will.''  The  proofs 
are  abundant  that  this  power  was  exercised.  There  was  another 
power  employed  none  the  less  potential,  that  of  promotion,  the 
exact  converse  of  the  other.  The  line  of  contest  became  sharply 
defined  in  the  Annual  Conference  elections  for  delegates  to  the 
General  Conference  of  1824.  An  examination  of  the  rosters 
respectively  of  1820  and  1824  will  reveal  how  patronage  and 
power  wrought  a  change  of  sentiment  or  was  exercised  to  exclude 
those  who  were  inflexible.  A  comparison  will  be  made  when  in 
the  ensuing  chapter  the  General  Conference  of  1824  is  fully 
considered. 


CHAPTER  III 


Prior  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  1824,  the  leading  Reformers,  Grif- 
fith, Morgan,  Waugh,  and  Emory,  issued  a  circular  Address  again  favoring  the 
Elective  Eldership  —  Counted  without  their  host;  secret  combine  of  the  anti- 
reformers  for  their  defeat  as  delegates  and  of  their  reform  measure ;  the  strat- 
egy of  the  movement  and  how  it  succeeded —  The  Episcopal  Address  and  its 
strange  recommendation  to  kill  by  anticipation  the  reform  memorials  —  Dr. 
T.  E.  Bond  and  Thomas  Kelso  as  Reformers  at  this  time ;  proofs  —  Answer  of 
the  Conference  to  the  Reformers  at  the  close  of  the  session;  the  "suspended 
resolutions"  disposed  of  at  the  same  time  by  the  machination  of  the  same 
parties;  how  it  was  accomplished;  full  history  of  it  —  Alarm  of  the  majority 
over  their  action  and  retrace  their  steps  in  part  —  Soule  and  Hedding  as  sec- 
tional bishops  chosen  —  Diplomacy  of  Emory  —  Division  into  Episcopal  Districts 
as  foreshadowing  the  sectional  sentiment  and  its  connection  with  the  division 
of  1844  —  The  bishops'  meeting  to  select  a  delegate  to  the  British  Conference 
an  abortion  for  the  same  reason ;  the  secret  memoranda  —  Eminent  Reformers. 

A  FEW  months  before  the  election  of  delegates  to  the  General 
Conference  of  1824  took  place  in  the  Baltimore  Conference,  the 
leaders  of  the  Elective  Presiding  Elder  question  felt  it  to  be 
auspicious  to  address  the  Annual  Conference  upon  the  subject. 
They  had  lost  no  courage,  as  is  manifest  from  the  Address  itself, 
but  they  were  as  evidently  not  posted  in  the  silent,  not  to  say 
insidious,  influences  which  were  at  work  to  accomplish  both  the 
defeat  of  the  measure,  with  all  that  it  implicated  of  further 
Reforms,  but  the  downfall  of  the  bold  advocates  as  well.  The 
Mutual  Bights,  etc.,  of  September  5  and  20,  1828,  has  the  text  of 
the  full  Address,  but  the  writer  has  failed  to  find  it  elsewhere, 
though  it  was  printed  in  pamphlet  by  the  authors  at  the  time, 
circulated  through  the  Baltimore  Conference,  and  signed  with 
their  own  names,  as  their  confidence  seems  to  have  been  equal  to 
their  courage.  Robert  Emory,  in  his  "Life  of  Bishop  Emory,"  ^ 
gives  free  extracts  from  it,  or  allows  his  venerated  father,  then 
six  years  deceased,  to  do  so  in  his  own  effort  to  vindicate  himself 
from  the  charge  of  being  a  "Radical."  The  authorship  of  the 
Address  is  frankly  admitted  by  both;  it  was  from  the  facile  pen 
of  John  Emory.  W.  S.  Stockton  had  a  copy  of  the  text  in  full, 
and  assigns  as  his  reason  for  not  republishing  the  whole :  "  The 

1  "The  Life  of  the  Rev,  John  Emory,  D.D.,"  etc.,  by  one  of  his  sons.  8vo. 
380  pp.    New  York.   Book  Concern.  1841. 

46 


EMORY'S  ADDRESS  TO  GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  1824  47 

Address  is  confined  to  the  consideration  of  the  'suspended  reso- 
lutions '  of  1820.  This  subject  having  been  discussed  in  the 
Repository,  we  need  not  apologize  for  having  room  only  for  the 
following  extract."  The  heading  is  also  given:  "Address  to 
the  Baltimore  Annual  Conference,  by  the  E,ev,  Alfred  Griffith, 
Gerard  Morgan,  Beverly  Waugh,  and  John  Emory."  They  say: 
"The  suspended  resolutions  give  us  very  little  solicitude  as  to 
any  importance  of  their  own ;  nor  are  we  concerned  for  their  own 
sake  how  they  are  disposed  of.  But  at  the  time  of  their  passage 
we  did  consider  them  important,  because  we  considered  them  in 
the  light  of  a  compromise,  and  as  partaking  in  some  sort  of  the 
sacredness  of  a  treaty.  The  manner  in  which  the  first  essay  was 
made  to  arrest  them  we  deemed  it  still  more  important  to  resist, 
because  we  viewed  it  as  the  germ  of  individual  supremacy  over  the 
General  Conference,  and  one  which  the  whole  character  of  its  in- 
cipient indications  compelled  us  to  believe  would  eventually  grow 
to  this,  if  not  promptly  and  effectually  put  down  at  its  very  first 
appearance.  Of  this  all  ecclesiastical  history  was  our  warning. 
It  remains  for  you,  Brethren,  to  determine  whether  those  ex- 
traordinary proceedings  shall  receive  your  sanction,  and  be  in- 
vested with  all  the  force  of  binding  precedents.  For  ourselves, 
whatever  inconveniences  it  may  bring  upon  us,  we  sincerely 
rejoice  that  our  votes  stand  recorded  against  them.  The  re- 
sponsibility is  now  taken  from  us,  and  rests  with  you ;  and  we 
call  upon  you  to  look  to  it  in  the  face  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
world.  Remember  the  force  of  precedents.  Remember  the  tenacious 
grasp  with  which  power  is  held  when  once  acquired.  Its  march  is 
ever  onward  and  its  tremendous  tendency  is  to  accumulation.  You 
are  to  act  not  only  for  the  present  age,  and  with  reference  to  those 
who  are  now  in  office,  but  for  posterity.  Look  forward  then,  we 
beseech  you,  to  the  influences  with  which  your  acts  will  descend 
upon  them,  and  to  the  aspect  with  which  they  will  be  exhibited 
upon  the  page  of  our  future  history."  The  italics,  except  the 
word  our,  are  by  the  writer,  as  singling  out  epigrammatical  sen- 
tences, which  like  those  given  by  M'Kendree  in  1792,  become  the 
catch-phrases  of  Reformers,  and  as  crystallizing  a  universal 
axiom. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  authors  take  ground  which  advances 
them  beyond  the  mere  occasion  of  the  suspended  resolutions  and 
plants  them  upon  Reform  principles,  with  their  ever  widening 
application.  It  is  always  pitiable  when  a  man,  after  accepting 
promotion  in  the  line  of  his  prior  denunciation  of  the  exercise  of 


48 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFOMM 


power,  seeks  to  mitigate  and  explain  away  his  record.  After 
Emory's  elevation  as  Assistant  Book  Agent  in  1824,  and  General 
Agent  in  1828,  and  Bishop  in  1832,  these  attempts  to  dissociate 
himself  from  the  Reformers,  as  found  in  his  son  Robert's  "  Life," 
may  have  been  satisfactory  to  his  adhering  friends,  but  will  not 
be  so  to  impartial  readers.^  The  strained  effort  at  exculpation 
does  not  favorably  impress  a  candid  reader,  and  it  would  have 
been  more  to  purpose  if  his  biographer  had  checked  his  filial  zeal 
to  do  so.  It  has  rendered  necessary  the  use  of  more  space  than 
would  have  been  the  writer's  preference,  so  for  the  present  this 
phase  of  the  subject  is  dismissed  with  a  few  observations  on  his 
associates  in  the  Address. 

Alfred  Griffith,  the  first  signer,  was  one  of  the  strong  men  of 
the  Baltimore  Conference,  but  now  aging,  and  who,  yielding  to 
the  adverse  pressure  of  1824-32,  quietly  succumbed  without  los- 
ing the  respect  of  his  fellow-Reformers.  Gerard  Morgan  was  a  ^ 
reputable  preacher,  who  had  been  an  Elder  of  leading  influence, 
but  who,  like  Griffith,  was  submerged  by  the  refluent  wave  of 

1  Rev.  Dr.  George  Brown,  who  as  a  witness  is  unimpeachable,  says:  "At  the 
Conference  at  Winchester  (April,  1824),  Beverly  Waugh,  with  some  difiSculty 
obtained  leave  to  read  N.  Suethen's  letter  in  favor  of  lay-delegation.  It  was 
heard  by  that  body  with  mingled  indications  of  favor  and  displeasure.  Joshua 
Soule  read  a  paper  inflicting  some  heavy  censure  on  John  Emory  for  certain  state- 
ments made  by  Emory  and  others  in  a  pamphlet  involving  Soule's  course  at  the 
General  Conference  of  1820.  Emory,  in  the  course  of  his  reply,  admitted  the  right 
of  the  Methodist  people  to  a  lay-delegation,  and  said  they  ought  to  have  it,  if  they 
so  desired.  Soule  presided  in  a  caucus  held  by  the  anti-reform  party  to  nominate 
delegates  to  the  General  Conference,  and  in  his  remarks  before  taking  the  chair, 
went  against  nominating  any  reformer,  as  the  ancient  order  of  things  must  be 
strictly  maintained.  .  .  ."  (The  reformers  also  held  a  caucus,  but  as  has  been 
found  all  their  candidates  were  defeated.)  ...  "  After  Conference  adjourned 
Emory  and  Waugh  took  me  with  them  to  a  self-defence  caucus  meeting  of  the 
friends  of  ecclesiastical  liberty.  This  was  the  first  time  I  ever  took  an  open, 
public  part  with  the  Reformers."  See  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  pp.  123,  124. 
Cincinnati  and  Springfield.  18G8.  8vo,  pp.  456.  Cloth.  It  will  often  be  cited 
hereafter  for  testimony.  The  quotation  italicized  by  the  writer  is  in  proof  that 
the  Eldership  question  and  Lay-Representation  hinged  upon  each  other,  and  makes 
nugatory  the  filial  effort  of  Emory's  son  to  dissociate  him  from  the  "  Radical 
controversy."  Brown  says  further,  on  p.  124,  "This  defeat  (to  the  General 
Conference),  in  connection  with  that  of  the  local  preacher  claim  to  a  share  in  the 
government  of  the  Church,  led  Emory  and  Waugh,  and  most  of  the  others,  it  is 
supposed,  to  abandon  the  cause  of  reform."  As  motives  those  assigned  are  satis- 
factory, and  shall  be  further  elaborated  in  this  History.  Men  have  a  right  to 
desist  from  the  advocacy  of  a  plan  found  encumbered  by  others  with  objection- 
able issues,  but  the  obloquy  cannot  thus  be  removed  from  those  of  them  who 
afterward  denounced  the  principles  involved,  as  these  are  apart  from  objection- 
able complications;  and  accept  promotion,  and  the  exercise  of  the  very  powers 
their  former  principles  disallowed.  This  essential  distinction  shall  not  be  over- 
looked in  the  analysis  of  the  pervert  Reformers  of  these  days. 


EMOBY  DEFEATED  FOR  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  49 

anti-reform.  He  was  known  to  posterity  through  his  three 
preacher  sons,  now  deceased,  of  enviable  fame  in  Maryland. 
Beverly  Waugh  has  already  been  introduced  as  a  still-hunt  Re- 
former. Of  mediocre  ability,  amiable  and  popular,  and  his  career 
an  exposition  of  the  proverb,  "The  prudent  man  foreseeth  the 
evil  and  hideth  himself,"  he  was  not  forgotten  for  promotion; 
made  Assistant  Book  Agent  to  Emory  in  1828,  General  Agent  in 
1832,  and  Bishop  in  1836.  His  administration  of  the  high  office 
was  mild  and  respectable,  and  residing  in  Baltimore  he  did  not 
by  extremes  of  utterance,  like  Emory,  forfeit  the  regard  of  his  old 
associates  in  Reform.  It  is  finally  noteworthy  that  while  these 
four  men  were  elected  to  the  General  Conference  of  1820  as 
Reformers  on  the  Elder  question,  not  one  of  them  was  elected  to 
the  General  Conference  of  1824,  so  that  while  their  Address  may 
have  had  its  effect  in  preventing  the  Baltimore  Conference  from 
indorsing  M'Kendree's  views,  such  had  been  the  growth  of  Epis- 
copal influence  that  they  were  marked  for  defeat,  and  a  full  dele- 
gation elected  known  to  be  anti-reformers.  The  same  result 
was  largely  brought  about  in  the  other  eleven  Conferences,  as 
will  be  seen  when  the  delegations  are  analyzed. 

Scriptural  doctrines  and  helpful  means  of  grace  continued  to 
triumph  in  Methodism,  if  an  unbalanced  government  did  con- 
tinually foment  discussion,  and  arbitrary  stretches  of  authority 
provoke  protest.  The  past  quadrennium  noted  an  increase  of 
white  members  from  267,618  to  280,427,  or  12,809.  The  per- 
centage is  small,  but  the  distractions  of  controversy  led  not  a  few 
thoughtful  people  in  many  communities  to  stand  aloof  from  a 
system  which  was  capable  of  the  abuses  exhibited,  while  others 
fell  away  from  its  support  as  incongruous  with  Christian  manli- 
ness. All  these  were  stigmatized  as  "enemies  of  Methodism," 
whether  in  or  out  of  the  Church;  but  the  reader  will  not  for 
a  moment  impeach  the  piety  of  the  adherents  of  the  Asbury- 
M'Kendree-Soule  plan.  With  all  good  conscience  and  changeless 
conviction  they  esteemed  themselves  the  Levites  of  the  tribes  of 
Israel,  and  Methodism  as  thus  interpreted  was  a  sacred  ark. 
What  if  the  oxen  did^stumble  in  hauling  it  at  Nachon's  threshing- 
floor,  the  impious  Uzzahs  who  stretched  forth  their  hands  under 
the  impulse  to  steady  it  would  surely  meet  no  other  fate  than 
that  of  their  prototype  against  whom  "  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was 
kindled." 

The  General  Conference  of  1824  assembled  in  Baltimore  May  1, 
in  the  Eutaw  Street  church,  under  whose  pulpit  now  reposed  the 

VOL.  II  —  E 


50 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


mortal  remains  of  Bishop  Asbury.  It  consisted  of  126  members. 
Bangs  furnishes  the  full  list.  A  scrutiny  of  it  discloses  the  fact 
that  except  in  a  few  Conferences  where  the  Reform  sentiment 
was  paramount,  Nathan  Bangs  from  the  New  York,  George 
Pickering  from  the  New  England,  Ezekiel  Cooper  and  James 
Smith  from  the  Philadelphia,  few  of  the  former  advocates  of  an 
Elective  Eldership  were  honored  with  seats  in  it.  In  the  Balti- 
more Conference,  despite  Emory's  Address  and  the  permeation 
of  the  local  ministry  and  the  membership  with  liberal  sentiments, 
the  entire  delegation  were  conservatives  and  reactionists,  such 
as  Soule,  Roszel,  Hitt,  Reed,  Henry  Smith,  and  the  two  Fryes. 
In  the  other  Conferences  the  Episcopacy  was  reenforced  by  Sand-  ^ 
ford,  Martindale,  Hedding,  Merrill,  Fisk,  Hardy,  George  Peck, 
the  two  Chamberlains,  Charles  Elliott,  Greenbury  R.  Jones, 
James  B.  Finley,  Sale,  Quinn,  and  the  two  Youngs,  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  Thomas  A.  Morris,  Beauchamp,  Paine,  Douglass,  Winans, 
Capers,  Andrews,  Morton,  Lovick  Pierce,  Copton,  Ware,  Rus- 
ling,  Lawrenson,  M'Combs,  and  Pittman.  Emory,  who  was 
stationed  in  Baltimore,  was  a  visitor,  as  well  as  other  defeated 
Reformers.  What  must  have  been  his  temporary  surprise  to  find 
himself  named  and  elected  Secretary  of  the  General  Conference 
despite  his  record  as  a  Reformer?  But  so  it  was.  He  was  a 
young  man  of  conspicuous  abilities,  and  is  marked  for  promotion. 
M'Kendree,  George,  and  Roberts  were  all  present.  Did  the  first 
named  out  of  his  earlier  experience  as  a  pervert  of  O'Kelly's  start 
the  whisper  which  spread  over  the  Conference  —  Emory  for  Sec- 
retary? A  change  of  mind  is  sometimes  wrought  by  the  force  of 
association,  and  preferment  is  a  powerful  means  of  illumination. 
Early  in  the  session  the  fraternal  delegates  from  the  Wesleyan 
Conference,  Revs.  Richard  Reece  and  John  Hannah,  were  intro- 
duced and  submitted  their  Address,  which  was  to  "  The  General 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,"  etc., —  the  first 
time  in  just  forty  years  that  this  title  was  recognized  by  the 
English  brethren,  under  the  favorable  influence  of  Emory's  visit 
four  years  earlier. 

The  Episcopal  Address  was  read  and  referred.  It  noted  that 
"the  last  four  j'ears  we  have  not  been  favored  with  extraordinary 
revivals  of  religion;"  "on  the  subject  of  Church  government 
some  of  our  friends  have  entered  into  various  speculations,  and 
it  seems  probable  that  memorials  will  be  laid  before  you  both 
from  local  preachers  and  private  members.  In  order  to  give  full 
satisfaction,  as  far  as  possible,  on  this  point,  it  may  be  expedient 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1824 


51 


to  appoint  a  committee  of  address,  to  prepare  circulars,  in  answer 
to  such  memorials  as  may  be  presented."  It  is  a  curious  recom- 
mendation by  way  of  anticipation ;  there  is  no  hint  of  possible 
concession,  only  a  method  of  disposition,  and  it  was  so.  The 
memorials  did  pour  in,  and  the  closing  numbers  of  the  third 
volume  of  the  Repository  have  preserved  not  a  few  happily,  that 
posterity  wishing  to  look  into  the  subject  might  have  opportunity 
to  judge  of  their  "inflammatory"  or  "slanderous"  or  "violent" 
character.  Notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  Snethen  and  Stockton 
to  unify  these  memorials  on  lay-representation,  while  having  a 
general  end  in  view,  they  were  diverse,  and  from  various  sources, 
—  individuals.  District  Conferences,  public  meetings  of  the  laity, 
Sunday-schools,  etc.  They  touched  almost  all  the  questions  of 
controversy  which  were  debated  from  1792.  It  was  the  misfor- 
tune of  a  good  cause,  and  adroit  advantage  was  taken  of  it  by  the 
solid  conservatives  of  the  Conference.  They  were  from  many 
sections  of  the  Church,  so  widespread  was  the  disaffection  insti- 
gated by  the  assumptions  of  M'Kendree  and  Soule,  and  imitated 
by  many  presiding  elders  in  the  various  Conferences.  Baltimore 
was,  however,  a  storm  centre.  The  original  of  a  copy  of  a 
Memorial  ^  addressed  to  the  bishops  and  Conference  is  now  before 
the  writer,  claiming  to  represent  the  views  of  a  convention  of 
Reformers,  which  for  literary  and  logical  character  might  well 
challenge  the  respect  and  consideration  of  any  deliberative  body. 
It  asks  for  representation  for  the  local  preachers  and  the  laity  in 
the  General  Conference ;  for  be  it  noted  that  up  to  1824  there  was 

1  This  Memorial  from  the  Baltimore  meeting  of  the  Reformers  is  evidently  as 
stated  the  "  original  of  the  copy  sent  to  the  General  Conference,"  and  is  well  pre- 
served, but  is  unsigned  so  that  even  the  authorship  of  it  cannot  be  certainly 
stated,  though  it  bears  the  literary  ear-marks  of  Snethen.  It  claimed  to  emanate 
from  the  "  General  Convention  of  the  delegates  of  the  members  and  local  preach- 
ers of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  friendly  to  reform."  It  meets  first  calmly 
and  argumentatively  the  objection  that  there  is  no  analogy  between  a  civil  and 
religious  government.  Then  it  takes  the  distinct  ground  of  right  as  over  against 
the  Bond-Kelso  idea  of  expediency,  and  asks  for  "legislative  liberty."  It  pro- 
poses that  the  representation  in  the  General  Conference  shall  give  to  the  local 
preachers  one-fourth,  and  the  laity  one-fourth,  leaving  the  remaining  half  to  be 
composed  of  the  Itinerants,  than  which  nothing  more  equitable  could  be  proposed. 
It  asks  that  the  General  Conference  shall  construe  the  section  of  the  discipline  as 
to  "endeavoring  to  sow  dissensions  "  so  that  it  shall  not  be  used  as  a  basis  of 
"constructive  treason"  only.  It  asks  that  in  the  trial  of  members  the  accused 
shall  have  the  right  of  challenge  as  to  the  committee,  and  an  option  to  be  tried 
before  the  society  without  the  consent  of  the  preacher  in  charge,  if  this  shall  be 
the  choice  of  the  accused.  It  asks  finally  either  for  the  abolition  of  the  presiding 
eldership  or  their  election  by  the  Annual  Conference.  The  temper  of  it  is  unex- 
ceptionable, as  any  one  may  see  who  shall  be  at  the  pains  to  examine  the  paper. 


52 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


no  disposition  to  interfere  with  the  General  Superintendency, 
except  in  curtailing  its  absolute  power  in  the  appointment  of  the 
Elders. 

Among  those  who  were  active  in  the  Reform  movement  were 
Thomas  Kelso  and  Thomas  E.  Bond,  the  former  a  leading  and 
wealthy  layman  and  the  latter  a  local  preacher  and  practising 
physician.  A  copy  of  a  printed  Memorial  to  the  General  Con- 
ference signed  by  the  former  as  Chairman  and  the  latter  as  Sec- 
retary is  now  before  the  writer.  Its  caption  is :  "  At  a  numerous 
meeting  of  the  male  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  city  of  Baltimore  held  by  adjournment  from  time  to  time 
in  the  Conference  Eoom,  Light  Street,  the  following  Memorial 
to  the  General  Conference  was  after  mature  deliberation  agreed 
upon."  It  shows  the  trained  pen  of  Dr.  Bond.  It  petitions  for 
a  lay-delegation  in  the  General  Conference  and  a  restoration  of 
the  licensing  power  to  the  Quarterly  instead  of  the  District  Con- 
ference as  an  abridgment  of  lay-privileges.  It  waives  all  natural 
or  abstract  right  to  such  participation  and  puts  their  appeal  on 
the  ground  of  expediency.  It  touches  other  points  in  the  Metho- 
dist economy,  —  the  support  of  the  preachers  and  the  education 
of  the  children.  Having  been  printed,  it  was  freely  circulated, 
the  manuscript  copy  having  been  sent  with  the  signatures  to  the 
General  Conference.  Indeed,  it  may  be  truthfully  alleged  that 
Methodism,  at  least  in  Baltimore,  was  saturated  with  Eeform; 
quite  a  number  of  the  Conference  ministers,  Ryland,  Shinn, 
Griffith,  Waugh,  Emory,  Morgan,  Hanson,  Davis,  Guest,  ^  and 
others,  while  the  local  preachers,  under  the  lead  of  Jennings, 
McCaine,  Bond,  Williams,  D.  E.  Reese,  Kesley,  Valiant,  John 
S.  Reese,  Cox,  John  C.  French,  McCormick,  and  Boyd  were  with 
few  exceptions  in  the  same  category.  In  fine,  so  general  was  it, 
that  when  a  few  years  later  the  expulsions  took  place,  it  was  with 
difficulty  that  a  committee  of  local  preachers  could  be  named  to 
conduct  the  trials  of  their  peers.    The  laity  was  represented  ^  by 

1  Mutual  Rights  for  August,  1824,  p.  57. 

2  "  Brief  Considerations  of  the  Present  System  of  Methodist  Episcopal  Govern- 
ment, with  a  few  Suggestions  toward  its  Improvement,"  respectfully  inscribed  to 
the  Travelling  Ministers  and  the  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  by 
A  Layman.   1824.  8vo.    40  pp. 

This  masterful  pamphlet  seems  to  have  been  issued  just  before  the  General 
Conference  of  1824,  and  it  is  the  sincere  regret  of  the  writer  that  he  has  found  it 
impossible  to  identify  the  author.  It  bears  not  a  few  marks  of  the  gifted  pen  of 
Gideon  Davis.  It  is  in  proof  that  while  the  controversy  at  this  stage  had  not 
fully  ripened,  that  there  were  laymen  who  fully  comprehended  the  whole  situa- 
tion.   This  pamphlet  is  an  anticipation  logically  of  most  of  Dr.  Bond's  Appeal, 


BALTIMORE  A  HOT-BED  OF  REFORM 


53 


the  intellect,  piety,  social  position,  and  business  thrift  of  the 
three  great  churches,  Light  Street,  Eutaw,  and  Fell's  Point,  as 
will  be  seen,  when  the  names  of  the  expelled  are  given  in  future 
proceedings.  There  were  some  notable  exceptions,  as  will  also 
be  seen,  but  no  question  can  be  made  that  the  Reformers  consti- 
tuted the  cream  of  the  Church. 

Despite  the  efforts  of  power  and  patronage,  exerted  actively 
through  the  presiding  elders, —  and  who  may  doubt  as  human 
nature  goes  that  the  most  was  made  of  it,  the  Reform  influence 
in  the  General  Conference  nearly  divided  the  delegations;  for 
while  there  was  not  one  south  of  the  Susquehanna  River,  those 
from  the  North  and  East  were  largely  in  sympathy  with  it,  at 
least  on  the  elective  eldership  question.  A  test  was  made  when, 
on  May  5,  a  motion  was  offered  to  appoint  a  committee  to  whom 
the  memorials  and  petitions  on  Reform  should  be  referred;  it  was 
lost  by  a  vote  of  fifty-three  affirmative  and  sixty  negative,  the 
Reformers  fearing  the  gag  of  a  Committee,  and  wishing  open  dis- 
cussion and  a  decision  upon  its  merits.  The  next  day,  however, 
after  some  amendments,  one  including  the  reading  of  the  papers 
before  reference,  it  was  carried,  and  a  committee  of  twelve,  named 
by  the  presiding  Bishop,  was  accordingly  appointed,  and  the  fair- 
ness of  the  executive  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  every 
one  of  them  was  a  pronounced  foe  of  lay-representation  and  the 
local  preachers'  claims,  the  chairman,  Nathan  Bangs,  favoring 
only  the  Elective  Eldership.^  The  proof  that  the  suspicions  of 
the  Reformers  were  well  founded  is  in  the  fact  that  their  Report 

specially  on  National  and  Church  Rights  as  identical  in  origin  of  the  Scriptural 
Principles  of  Church  Government,  and  the  assumption  that  the  success  of  Ameri- 
can Methodism  was  due  to  the  hierarchic  system  as  much,  if  not  more,  than  to  its 
peculiar  doctrines  and  spiritual  fervor.  One  citation  on  this  point  must  suffice : 
"Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  opponents  of  Reform  appealing  to  our 
success  for  justification  of  the  present  polity.  And  suppose  it  were  possible  to 
inquire  of  every  member  of  the  Church  whether  they  joined  it  from  a  love  of  the 
government,  what  would  be  the  answer?  Let  those  who  desire  an  answer  preach 
nothing  but  our  form  of  government,  and  see  how  many  they  will  get  to  love  it, 
and  to  become  Methodists  from  a  love  of  the  government.  The  truth  is  our  suc- 
cess has  been  independent  of,  and  even  in  opposition  to,  the  form  of  government ; 
the  polity  of  the  Church  has  driven  thousands  from  the  Church,  and  kept  thou- 
sands out  of  the  Church.  The  injustice  of  our  system  has  become  matter  of  gen- 
eral recognition,  general  reproach,  and  general  disgust.  Why,  then,  is  a  system 
kept  up  which  is  prejudicial  to  the  gospel,  which  does  our  Church  so  much  harm, 
and  gives  it  so  much  scandal?  "  The  reader  will  remember  that  just  such  views 
were  affirmed  by  the  writer  in  the  first  volume,  as  a  part  of  the  necessary  philos- 
ophy of  the  situation,  and  here  confirmed  by  an  intelligent  layman  of  the  Church 
living  so  near  the  times. 

1  For  full  committee  see  Mutual  Rights,  August,  1824,  p.  13. 


54 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFORM 


was  not  presented  until  the  last  day  of  the  Conference  session, 
and  then  it  was  in  the  form  of  a  "  Circular "  addressed  to  the 
general  Church  and  signed  by  Bishops  M'Kendree,  George,  and 
Roberts.  Dr.  John  French,  a  visitor,  says:  "As  to  the  question 
of  a  lay-delegation,  it  was  never  before  the  Conference.  It 
perished  in  the  committee  to  which  petitions  for  reform  were 
referred.  The  reformers  made  no  attempt  to  call  it  up.  They 
knew  at  the  opening  of  the  Conference  that  the  majority  was 
against  them."  ''Baltimore"  James  Smith,  who  was  in  the 
Philadelphia  delegation,  says  of  the  Circular,  "  It  was  not  passed 
by  the  General  Conference  until  the  last  day  of  its  session,  when 
most  of  the  representatives  of  the  New  York,  Genesee,  New 
England,  and  a  number  of  those  from  Philadelphia  had  left  Bal- 
timore and  were  on  their  way  home.  It  was  carried  through  the 
house  with  little  or  no  opposition,  as  it  was  done  on  the  afternoon 
of  the  day  on  which  the  'Conciliatory  Kesolutions  '  were  virtually 
suspended  for  four  years  longer;  with  all  the  attendant  advantages 
taken  of  the  minority  on  account  of  the  absence  of  so  many  of 
their  coadjutors  in  the  same  common  cause."  ^  And  yet  the 
bishops  in  this  "  Circular  of  the  General  Conference  "  say,  "  To 
these  memorials,  as  well  as  others  praying  the  continuance  of  our 
government  in  its  present  form,  we  have  given  attentive  hearing 
in  full  conference;  and  after  much  reflection  we  reply."  It  may 
be  found  in  full  in  Bangs's  History  "  and  in  the  August  number, 
1824,  of  the  Mutual  Bights.  Bangs  says  that  it  was  passed  "  after 
an  able  and  full  discussion."  Let  this  be  offset  by  James  Smith 
(Baltimore),  a  member,  and  Dr.  John  French,  a  spectator,  as 
already  cited.  The  action  of  the  Conference  was:  "Resolved, 
1st,  that  it  is  inexpedient  to  recommend  a  lay-delegation.  2d, 
Resolved  that  the  following  circular  be  sent  in  reply  to  the  peti- 
tioners, memorialists,  etc."  It  may  be  characterized  as  plausible, 
patronizing,  and  paternal;  the  gist  of  it  may  be  thus  summed  up. 
Referring  to  the  scanty  support  of  the  ministry  alluded  to  by  the 
petitioners,  it  says:  "Whatever  that  cause  may  be,  we  at  least 
have  no  information  that  the  people  refuse  to  contribute,  because 
they  are  not  represented.  Indeed,  it  would  grieve  us  to  know 
this;  for  even  though  they  should  refuse  to  acknowledge  us  as 
their  representatives  in  the  General  Conference,  they  cannot  do 
less  for  the  love  of  Christ  than  they  would  oblige  themselves  to 
do  out  of  love  for  authority." 

1  "  Honestus's  "  f  James  Smith)  Review  of  Circular  in  Mutual  Rights  for 
August  and  September,  1824. 


REPLY  TO  REFORMERS'  PETITIONS 


55 


In  this  is  presented  the  germ  of  what  afterward  became  the 
infamous  "purse-string"  argument  of  the  anti-reformers,  and 
unwittingly  at  the  same  time  its  effective  answer.  In  plain  prose 
it  is:  the  people  evidently  approve  our  government,  otherwise 
they  would  not  support  us  in  a  living,  but  this  they  dare  not  do, 
as  it  is  forbidden  by  the  love  of  Christ."  Again:  "We  rejoice 
to  know  that  the  proposed  change  is  not  contemplated  as  a 
remedy  for  evils  which  now  exist,  .  .  .  but  that  it  is  offered, 
either  in  the  anticipation  of  the  possible  existence  of  such  evils, 
or  else  on  a  supposition  of  abstract  rights,  which  in  the  opinion 
of  some  should  form  the  basis  of  our  government.  .  .  .  The 
rights  and  privileges  of  our  brethren,  as  members  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  we  hold  most  sacred.  We  are  unconscious 
of  having  infringed  them  in  any  instance;  nor  would  we  do  so." 
Here  is  a  curious  jumble  of  terms.  How  can  there  be  "rights 
and  privileges"  which  are  not  basically  abstract,  and  yet  the 
petitioners  are  scouted  for  suggesting  that  they  have  "  abstract 
rights !  "  After  toying  with  them  about  the  "  general  rules  and 
articles  of  religion  "  as  a  "  constitution, "  which  guarantees  your 
"rights  and  privileges,"  the  master  stroke  is  delivered  in  these 
words,  which  furnished  another  imperishable  epigram  for  Reform 
literature:  "But  if  by  Wights  and  privileges  ^  it  is  intended  to  sig- 
nify something  foreign  from  the  institutions  of  the  Church,  as  we 
received  them  from  our  fathers,  pardo7i  us  if  we  know  no  such  rights, 
if  we  do  not  comprehend  such  privileges.  With  our  brethren  every- 
where, we  rejoice  that  the  institutions  of  our  happy  country  are 
admirably  calculated  to  secure  the  best  ends  of  civil  government. 
With  their  rights,  as  citizens  of  these  United  States,  the  Church 
disclaims  all  interference;  but  that  it  should  be  inferred  from 
these  what  are  your  rights  as  Methodists  seems  to  us  no  less  sur- 
prising than  if  your  Methodism  should  be  made  the  criterion  of 
your  rights  as  citizens."  The  italics  are  supplied  to  emphasize 
the  epigram.  The  closing  antithetical  period  of  this  paragraph 
formed  the  foundation  of  all  after-arguments  of  the  anti-reformers, 
viz. :  the  nature  of  government,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  is  utterly 
diverse,  so  that  no  likeness  is  demanded,  and  the  want  of  parallel 
is  of  divine  intention.  The  damaging  sequence  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  observed  by  these  zealous  hierarchs:  ergo,  that  the 
"  civil  institutions  of  the  United  States  "  have  no  countenance  in 
the  New  Testament  principles  of  Christian  manhood  taught  by 
Christ  and  the  apostles.  The  Circular  concludes  with  four 
sophistical  reasons  for  not  granting  the  representation  prayed. 


66 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


"Honestus,"  already  identified  in  the  Mutual  Bights,  riddles 
the  specious  logic,  and  to  his  review  those  are  referred  who  are 
interested  enough  to  read  it.  The  Circular  was  spread  broadcast 
throughout  the  connection,  the  anti-reformers  giving  it  wings 
because  they  esteemed  it  unanswerable,  and  the  Eeformers  as 
well,  because  they  found  in  it  the  strongest  ground  for  continue^ 
maintenance  of  their  principles  and  aims. 

Agreeably  with  the  nature  of  things,  like  consorting  with  like, 
on  the  morning  of  the  day  the  Circular  was  passed,  the  "  Sus- 
pended Kesolutions  "  were  acted  upon  also.  On  this  question  the 
Conference  was  so  nearly  divided  that  the  friends  of  an  unlim- 
ited Episcopacy  approached  it  cautiously.  On  the  20th  of  May, 
Cartwright  offered  a  motion  that  the  Resolutions  be  incorporated 
in  the  organic  law  when  the  dissenting  Conferences  should  concur. 
Tigert  admits  that  strategy  of  a  high  order  was  employed,  and 
that  there  was  a  private  understanding  that  Young  of  Ohio  should 
bring  in  a  repealing  resolution  the  next  day,  ''the  result  proving 
satisfactory  to  those  who  had  introduced  it,"  i.e.  the  Cartwright 
motion.  "The  constitutionalists  were  gaining  confidence,  and 
were  rather  forcing  the  fight."  On  the  22d  of  May  Young's 
motion  was  introduced,  after  a  preamble,  "that  the  resolutions 
are  not  of  authority,  and  shall  not  be  carried  into  effect,"  and  on 
the  24th  it  came  up  on  a  motion  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  which  was 
defeated.  Then  the  vote  was  taken  by  ballot,  with  the  result 
sixty-three  in  favor  and  sixty-one  against,  so  the  M'Kendree- 
Soule  party  triumphed  by  the  narrow  majority  of  two  votes.  A 
scene  of  unseemly  excitement  followed.  Tigert  says :  "  So  high 
did  the  tide  of  party  feeling  run,  that  twice,  while  the  resolution 
was  pending,  Bishop  Roberts  in  the  chair,  the  quorum  was  broken, 
and  only  under  the  remonstrances  of  the  chairman  and  the  vener- 
able Garrettson  was  it  restored  and  the  measure  finally  passed."  ^ 

There  must  have  been  blatant  exhibitions  by  the  political 
tricksters  of  a  foregone  purpose  to  maintain  the  Episcopacy,  to 
drive  from  the  Conference  room  a  number  sufficient  twice  to 
break  the  quorum  and  put  the  body  on  the  ragged  edge  of  a  dis- 
organized adjournment.  As  it  was  not,  a  few  of  the  Reformers 
after  the  26th  of  May,  three  days  before  adjournment,  left  for 
their  homes.  The  Episcopal  party  became  alarmed  at  the  tokens 
of  indignation,  and,  taking  counsel  of  their  fears,  on  motion  of 
Paine  and  Capers,  both  friends  of  the  measure  as  passed,  it  was 
resolved  —  and  that  without  a  reconsideration  of  the  action  as 

1  "  History,"  p.  383. 


"  SUSPENDED  RESOLUTIONS  "  FURTHER  SUSPENDED  67 


carried  —  "  that  the  suspended  resolutions,  making  the  presiding 
elder  elective,  etc.,  are  considered  as  unfinished  business,  and 
are  neither  to  be  inserted  in  the  revised  form  of  the  Discipline, 
nor  to  be  carried  into  operation,  before  the  next  General  Con- 
ference." So  they  hung  upon  the  minutes  as  "unfinished  busi* 
ness."  It  was  a  mere  "  sop  to  Cerberus."  Now  came  on  the  final 
struggle.  It  was  determined  to  reenforce  the  Episcopacy  by  the 
election  of  two  bishops.  The  lines  were  again  closely  drawn. 
Joshua  Soule  and  William  Beauchamp  were  the  candidates  of  the 
constitutionalists,  and  sectional  as  well,  while  Elijah  Hedding 
and  John  Emory  were  their  opponents,  and  also  sectional.  The 
election  took  place  May  26.  On  counting  the  ballots  —  and  all 
the  authorities  agree,  taking  their  data  from  the  minutes.  Bangs, 
M'Tyeire,  and  Tigert  —  "Soule  had  64  votes,  Beauchamp  62, 
Hedding  61,  and  Emory  59;  but  128  votes  being  cast,  there  was 
no  election.  On  the  second  ballot  Soule  had  65,  and  was  elected, 
being  the  only  one  receiving  a  majority.  But  before  the  third 
ballot  was  taken,  Mr.  Emory  arose  and  withdrew  his  name.  This 
is  commonly  regarded  as  the  modest  act  of  the  youngest  man 
whose  name  was  before  the  Conference.  Undoubtedly  it  was 
such  an  act,  and  Mr.  Emory  could  well  afford  to  wait.  But  it 
was  more  than  this.  The  fathers  were  not  quite  so  innocent  in 
such  matters  as  is  usually  supposed.  There  was  no  possibility 
of  the  election  of  more  than  one  of  the  candidates  of  the  anti- 
constitutionalists,  and  the  younger  man  withdrew  in  favor  of  the 
senior  and  leading  name.  Moreover,  but  one  name  was  to  go  on 
the  ballots  this  third  time,  since  Mr.  Soule  had  been  elected, 
and  if  Messrs.  Hedding  and  Emory  divided  the  votes  of  their 
party  it  was  almost  certain  to  elect  Mr.  Beauchamp.  Conse- 
quently Mr.  Emory  withdrew,  and  on  the  third  ballot  Mr.  Hed- 
ding received  66  votes  to  Mr.  Beauchamp's  60,  and  was  elected. 
There  was  an  element  of  danger  in  the  fact  that  each  Bishop  had 
been  chosen  by  a  sectional  and  party  vote ;  but  it  was  well  for 
the  unity  of  the  Church,  divided  on  a  constitutional  issue,  but 
by  a  sectional  line,  that  each  party  secured  a  Bishop.  No  fracture 
took  place,  but  if  ^  severe  strain  should  come,  the  plane  of 
cleavage  was  painfully  evident."  ^  It  did  come  in  1844,  and  the 
Episcopacy  as  interpreted  by  the  Asbury-M'Kendree-Soule  sec- 
tion was  solely  responsible  for  the  untoward  act,  precipitated  by 
a  dominating  majority  bent  on  its  purpose  without  regard  to  con- 
sequences. 

1  Tigert's    History,"  pp.  384,  385. 


68 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


One  serious  fact  is  unnoticed  by  any  of  the  authorities.  By 
ca.ref ul  count  of  the  members  from  the  official  Minutes  there  were 
but  126  elected  to  the  General  Conference  of  1824,  and  it  appears 
from  the  ballots  that  every  one  was  present,  quite  a  phenomenal 
fact  in  those  days  of  difficult  and  distant  travel,  and  yet  on  two 
of  the  three  ballots  for  bishops  there  were  128  votes  cast.  Did 
two  of  the  three  bishops  then  vote?  It  must  have  been  so,  or  a 
worse  thing  occurred  —  false  ballots  were  cast.  Charity  would 
assume  the  former  to  be  the  fact,  but  at  what  cost  of  disparage- 
ment of  the  Episcopacy?  Since  1808  they  were  not  regarded  as 
voting  members  of  the  body,  and  are  not  to  this  day.  It  is  an 
historical  conundrum  worthy  of  record,  but  demanding  no  solu- 
tion from  the  writer.  Strange  things  were  done,  however,  that 
mar  the  conception  of  a  delicate  sense  of  honor  and  truth.  It 
seems  to  adhere  to  the  hierarchal  system,  made  a  Jesuitical 
canon  in  its  Eomish  form,  that  the  "end  sanctifies  the  means." 

Another  matter  was  disposed  of  at  this  Conference.  It  was 
contended  that  the  body  had  the  right  to  divide  the  Church  into 
Episcopal  districts  so  as  to  obviate  the  travel  of  the  bishops  over 
the  entire  territory;  but  it  was  decided  adversel}^,  with  a  recom- 
mendation that  the  bishops  should  hold  annual  meetings  and 
parcel  out  the  Conferences  for  visitation,  but  in  such  a  way  that 
each  should  make  the  round  of  the  whole  number  within  the 
quadrennium.  By  an  accident  of  the  situation  it  strangely  in- 
tensified the  sectional  animus  of  the  Episcopacy;  for  the  Con- 
ference having  authorized  the  bishops  to  appoint  a  fraternal 
delegate  to  the  British  Conference,  in  compliment  to  Messrs. 
Reece  and  Hannah,  they  met  in  1826,  George  and  Hedding 
having  travelled  in  the  North  and  Roberts  and  Soule  in  the 
South,  while  M'Kendree  was  incapacitated  largely  by  ill  health. 
Bishops  George  and  Hedding  were  holding  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
ference, April  13-18,  and  Bishops  M^Kendree  and  Soule  came 
from  the  South  to  have  the  bishops'  meeting,  Roberts  being 
absent.  William  Capers  was  nominated  by  M'Kendree  and  Soule, 
but  George  and  Hedding  objected  because  he  was  connected  with 
slavery,  and  named  instead  Wilbur  Eisk  or  Ezekiel  Cooper;  and 
so  sharp  became  the  contention  over  it  that  no  one  was  named, 
and  the  matter  went  over  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference. 
Tigert  publishes  the  memoranda  of  the  meeting  in  full,  but  they 
were  kept  secret  for  nearly  seventy  years.  But  that  the  truth  of 
history  demands  that  the  whole  truth  should  be  told,  as  well  as 
nothing  but  the  truth,  it  would  have  been  to  the  credit  of  all 


SECTIONAL  BISHOPS:   NORTH  AND  SOUTH 


59 


concerned  if  they  had  been  consigned  to  the  limbo  of  nihility 
forever.  Some  inklings  of  the  trouble  got  out,  and  McCaine 
gives  hints  of  it.  The  memoranda  were  found  among  the 
papers  of  M'Kendree,  but  were  not  published  by  his  biographer, 
Bishop  Paine,  but  are  given  by  Tigert  in  his  "History,"  the  lat- 
ter having  a  special  motive ;  it  made  a  link  in  his  argumentative 
chain. 

It  is  interesting  as  a  matter  of  history  that  the  sectional  feeling 
on  slavery  was  so  pronounced  at  this  early  day  that  "Bishop 
Hedding  from  1824  to  1844  made  but  a  single  tour  of  the  Southern 
Conferences,  and  that  in  1831,  seven  years  after  he  became 
Bishop;  in  the  same  year  Bishop  Soule  made  his  first  episcopal 
visitation  in  the  North!  The  Bishops  were  localized."  ^  Was  it 
because  Ezekiel  Cooper  foresaw  coming  events  that  he  so  strenu- 
ously advocated  a  diocesan  bishopric?  If  adopted,  it  would  have 
superseded  the  necessity  for  presiding  elders,  and  the  saving  of 
an  immense  sum  annually.  And  as  there  would  have  been  no 
friction  on  account  of  the  interchangeable  visitations  of  these 
sectional  ofiicers,  it  is  among  possibilities  that  the  division  of  the 
Church  might  have  been  prevented,  as  it  was  in  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church,  the  only  Protestant  denomination  that  was 
saved  from  disruption  by  the  slavery  question,  having  continental 
territory.  All  the  virtue  of  a  "  General  Superintendency  "  could 
have  been  secured  by  an  annual  or  quadrennial  meeting  of  these 
bishops,  and  another  immense  expense  saved  as  entailed  by  the 
system  which  demands  that  every  Bishop  must  in  the  quadren- 
nium  travel  all  around  the  world  that  the  fiction  may  be  kept  up. 
But  Wesley  did  it  and  Asbury  did  it,  and,  like  true  Bourbons, 
who  forget  nothing  and  learn  nothing,  and  regardless  of  the 
change  of  circumstances,  this  episcopal  wheel  must  be  kept  re- 
volving. How  much  longer  it  will  be  tolerated  by  a  patient  and 
disfranchised  membership  remains  to  be  seen.  Only  one  thing 
would  be  marred  by  such  a  change:  the  hierarchal  ideal  of 
wheels  within  wheels;  and  it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  the 
"  General  Superintendency  "  has  so  many  ardent  admirers  among 
the  officials  of  the  Church. 

The  new  bishops  were  ordained  May  27,  after  a  sermon  by 
Bishop  George.  Soule  reached  the  pinnacle  of  a  Methodist 
preacher's  ambition  under  his  own  interpretation  of  the  prac- 
tically unlimited  powers  of  the  Episcopacy.  He  was  a  colossus 
in  the  Church,  having  in  him  the  timber  of  which  popes  are 

1  Tigert's  "  Constitutional  History,"  p.  392. 


60 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


made,  and  after  1844,  though  born  in  Maine,  1781,  he  cast  in  hisi 
lot  with  the  South  in  logical  consistency  with  his  "Constitu- 
tional "  ideas,  his  conscience  following  his  reasoning.  Of  splen- 
did physique,  gifted  and  laborious,  he  survived  until  March  6, 
1867.  Hedding  was  born  in  New  York  in  1780.  He  was  highly 
respected  for  purity  of  character,  amiability,  and  talents,  the 
latter  not  of  a  very  high  order,  large  and  venerable  in  presence. 
He  died  April  9,  1852.  The  Conference  elected  John  Emory 
Assistant  Book  Agent  at  New  York,  with  Nathan  Bangs  as  Agent. 
What  did  this  election  and  that  to  the  Secretariat  of  the  Con- 
ference mean  after  his  defeat  as  a  delegate  by  the  Baltimore 
Conference  for  his  Eeform  sentiments?  It  did  not  mean  cer- 
tainly an  indorsement  of  them,  but  it  did  mean,  first,  abilities 
that  challenged  recognition,  and,  second,  his  rescue  from  the 
number  of  "inflammatory,^^  "slanderous,"  and  "violent"  writers 
on  Reform.    It  will  be  seen  that  the  method  was  successful. 

Just  before  the  Conference  adjourned.  May  29,  to  meet  in 
Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May  1,  1828,  Bishop  M'Kendree,  felicitating 
himself  on  the  accomplishment  of  all  his  views  as  a  "  Constitu- 
tional "  exponent,  felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to  make  an  Address 
to  the  body,  the  objective  of  which  was  to  exculpate  himself  from 
his  unauthorized  reference  of  the  "Suspended  Resolutions"  to 
the  Annual  Conferences.  Paine,  in  his  "Life  of  M'Kendree," 
tells  that  he,  with  John  Summerfield,  who  was  a  visitor  at  the 
Conference  and  employed  in  missionary  labor  within  the  Balti- 
more Conference,  took  down  the  Address  in  shorthand,  and  it 
can  be  found  in  the  "Life  of  M'Kendree."  The  gist  of  it  is  in 
these  sentences :  "  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  act  was 
not  within  the  limits  of  our  restricted  powers ;  but  I  was  induced 
to  do  it  from  a  precedent  which  had  been  once  set  by  that  vener- 
able man,  Bishop  Asbury."  He  refers  to  the  organization  of  the 
Genesee  Conference,  but  this  was  prior  to  1808,  when,  according 
to  these  doctrinaires,  the  Church  had  no  "Constitution,"  and 
therefore  Asbury  was  a  law  unto  himself  as  no  other  man  could 
dare  to  be.  M'Kendree,  however,  admits  that  he  did  an  extra- 
constitutional  thing  to  accomplish  a  foregone  purpose.  Caesar 
did  it,  and  Pompey  will  be  no  less  than  Caesar;  that  is  all  of  it. 
These  men  were  possessed  with  one  idea:  the  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel  and  means  of  grace  instituted  by  Wesley  had  brought 
success  under  a  given  system  of  government,  ergo,  it  must  needs 
be  perfect.  Paine,  who  was  present,  says:  "The  moment  he 
rose  noise  and  motion  ceased  in  the  crowded  house,"  and  when 


REFORMER  SPECTATORS  AT  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  61 


he  closed,  "his  cheeks  moistened  with  tears,  bade  them  as  he 
supposed  a  long  farewell.  The  whole  audience  continued  awhile 
in  profound  silence,  interrupted  only  by  partially  suppressed 
emotions.  He  concluded  his  address  with  the  apostolic  bene- 
diction, and  retired."    Soon  after  the  Conference  adjourned. 

Meanwhile  the  Reformers  were  not  idle.  The  126  with  the 
bishops  were  quartered  upon  the  best-to-do  laymen,  many  of 
whom  "were  pronounced  for  Representation.  The  locality  were 
nearly  to  a  man  in  favor  of  representation  for  themselves  and  for 
the  laity,  a  proceeding  that  seemed  so  equitable,  not  to  name 
other  considerations,  that  general  confidence  prevailed  that  some- 
thing would  be  conceded  by  the  General  Conference  at  least  of 
an  initiatory  nature.  There  were  a  large  number  of  visitors  of 
Reform  tendencies,  not  a  few  from  quite  a  distance  in  those  days. 
Snethen  and  Stockton  were  there  observing  the  course  of  events, 
and  always  self-poised.  Jennings,  also  large-hearted  and  large- 
minded,  but  of  ardent  temperament,  swayed  a  commanding  influ- 
ence as  popular  physician,  educator,  and  preacher,  giving  his 
spare  moments  to  the  "  Life  of  Asbury "  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Baltimore  Conference.  Shinn  was  there  with  all  his  master- 
ful faculties  under  calm  control,  and  not  yet  fully  committed  to 
Reform.  McCaine  was  the  master  of  a  large  and  flourishing  day- 
school  for  boys,  an  Agamemnon  with  his  armor  on,  who  had 
shared  the  secret  confidence  of  Asbury  and  the  giants  of  an  earlier 
day,  and  who  was  much  respected  and  not  a  little  feared  by  the 
"  Bishop  men  "  so  called,  for  what  he  knew  of  the  inwardness  of 
scheming  preachers.  He  stood  six  feet  two  inches  in  his  stock- 
ings, symmetrically  built,  a  majestic  head,  and  strongly  cut 
features,^  with  physical  and  moral  courage  that  blanched  at 
nothing,  hot  and  impulsive,  and  who  was  never  known  to  give 
flattering  titles  to  any  man.  Rev.  Dr.  John  French  of  Virginia 
was  there,  strong  in  all  the  elements  of  a  great  and  good  Metho- 
dist. Rev.  Francis  Waters,  the  courtly  Christian  gentleman,  the 
classical  scholar,  the  devout  Methodist,  the  finished  preacher,  and 
the  inflexible  Reformer,  was  also  there  from  his  Eastern  Shore 
home.    Griffith,  James  M.  Hanson,  Ryland,  John  Davis,  Morgan, 

1  The  only  "  counterfeit  presentment "  of  him  extant  is  in  the  form  of  a  plaster 
bust  and  head  in  the  possession  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern,  and  stationed 
over  the  glass  book-case  containing  the  files  of  the  official  paper.  It  is  a  study 
for  a  physiognomist,  and  pronounced  a  good  likeness  by  the  venerable  McCor- 
mick,  and  others,  who  knew  him.  It  was  cast  about  1835,  and  at  the  same  time 
one  of  Dr.  Jennings,  and  one  of  the  youthful  and  lamented  Davies.  One  of  Dr. 
Jennings  is  still  preserved  in  the  family  of  Dr.  Thomas  Owings. 


62 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Guest,  and  many  others  were  there,  alive  to  the  issues.  Vying 
with  Jennings  in  all  but  preaching  popularity  was  Dr.  Thomas  E. 
Bond.  He  was  a  son  of  Thomas  Bond  of  Harford  County,  Md., 
who  was  one  of  Strawbridge's  converts  from  the  Friends,  and  a 
brother  of  John  Wesley  Bond,  the  travelling  companion  of  Asbury 
in  his  closing  years.  Well  educated,  a  skilful  physician,  a  loyal 
Methodist,  filling  official  positions  from  very  early  life,  yet  with 
a  mind  open  to  the  possible  improvements  of  its  economy.  He 
has  been  found  an  active  advocate  of  a  lay-delegation  on  the 
ground  of  expediency.  Eminently  social,  a  fluent  talker,  and  a 
ready  debater,  he  was  a  recognized  leader  in  the  Church.  He 
had  one  quality  that  moulded  his  whole  career.  His  admirers 
said  he  was  sagacious  in  all  the  phases  of  the  word  as  defined  by 
lexicographers.  His  critics  said  he  was  tricky  in  its  broad  defini- 
tion; and  as  this  is  a  serious  allegation,  it  will  be  supported  by 
the  facts  of  his  devious  course  and  the  evidence  of  himself  and 
others.  It  was  this  element  of  his  character  that  made  him  a 
suspect,  though  he  had  the  free  entree  of  the  Eeformer  meetings 
and  their  personal  confidence.  He  will  often  appear  in  these 
pages.  Gideon  Davis  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  came  up  to  Balti- 
more for  consultation  with  his  Eeform  brethren,  as  his  duties  as 
clerk  in  the  United  States  Treasury  permitted.  Cultured,  forci- 
ble, magnetic,  and  true,  no  man  of  his  abilities  has  received  less 
notice,  yet  no  man  of  the  laity  did  more  for  Eeform  as  it  cul- 
minated in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Other  laymen  of 
note  in  the  Baltimore  churches,  and  in  the  community  as  citizens, 
were  Chappell,  Sr.,  referred  to  in  the  first  volume,  John  J.  Harrod, 
Thomas  Mummy,  Wesley  Starr,  Thomas  Kelso,  John  Kennard, 
W.  K.  Boyle,  E.  Strahen,  Lambert  Thomas,  John  Coates,  Sr., 
Hawkins,  Patterson,  Thomas  and  Samuel  Jarrett,  Gephart,  Sr., 
Howard,  Forman,  Northman,  Fountain,  and  others.  These  Ee- 
formers  were  not  idle  while  measures  for  their  overwhelming 
discomfiture  were  maturing  by  the  partisan  committee  of  twelve 
in  the  General  Conference. 

Eeferred  to  them  on  the  6th  of  May,  they  made  no  report  upon 
the  memorials,  etc.,  in  their  custody  for  nearly  three  weeks. 
Whisperings  of  their  adverse  unanimous  verdict  got  out,  and  the 
Eeformers  prepared  for  action.  Accordingly  a  meeting  was  con- 
vened in  the  schoolroom  of  McCaine,  and  the  threatening  situa- 
tion canvassed.  May  21,  1824.  It  was  numerously  attended; 
Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  and  J.  W.  Bordley  of  Queen  Anne,  Md.,  and 
W.  Smith  of  New  York  were  also  present,  as  well  as  no  less  than 


DEFEATED  REFORMERS  OF  1S24  REORGANIZE  63 

seventeen  members  of  the  General  Conference.^  Their  names  are 
unknown,  McCaine  stating  in  extenuation,  in  his  first  essay  in 
the  opening  number  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  p.  17:  "Did  they 
only  know  the  names  of  these  champions  of  Mutual  Rights,  they 
would  feel  and  confess,  as  I  am  willing  to  do,  the  high  obligation 
they  are  under  to  men  of  such  noble  and  liberal  minds.  The  only 
alloy  I  feel  on  the  occasion  is,  that  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  record 
their  names."  Wherefore?  For  them  individually  everything 
was  staked  on  concealment.  The  marvel  is  that  such  a  number 
could  be  summoned  at  such  a  meeting  out  of  a  General  Conference 
elected  and  organized  to  defeat  and  crush  the  Eeform  movement. 
The  meeting  resolved  three  things :  "  To  institute  a  periodical  pub- 
lication, entitled  The  Mutual  Rights  of  the  Ministers  and  Members 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  to  be  conducted  by  a  committee 
of  ministers  and  laymen;  to  raise  societies  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  disseminate  the  princi- 
ples of  a  well-balanced  government,  and  to  correspond  with  each 
other;  to  appoint  a  committee  of  their  own  body  to  draft  a  cir- 
cular addressed  to  the  ministers  and  members  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  to  forward  the  same  forthwith  to  all  parts 
of  the  United  States."  The  committee  was  Jennings,  Erench, 
Smith,  Davis,  Bordley,  and  Hopper.  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  Chair- 
man of  the  meeting,  and  Francis  Waters,  Secretary.  The  Circular 
was  at  once  prepared  and  addressed,  and  anticipated  that  of  the 
General  Conference  a  week  or  two,  but  as  the  preachers  every- 
where under  the  elders  transmitted  the  letter,  it  reached  a  hun- 
dred of  the  membership  where  that  of  the  Reformers  reached  one, 
as  it  was  put  under  ban,  and  suppressed  as  far  as  possible.  The 
full  text  of  the  Circular  as  well  as  of  the  meeting  may  be  found 
pages  3,  4,  5,  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  the  Circular  of  the  Con- 
ference following  it  on  pages  5,  6,  7.  Those  who  wish  to  examine 
the  Christian  temper  and  perfect  moderation  of  the  Reformers' 
Circular  are  referred  to  it.  The  gist  of  it  is  their  disappointed 
expectations,  calling  upon  Reformers  "not  to  suffer  these  un- 
pleasant circumstances  to  alienate  their  affections  from  the 
Church,  nor  to  induce  them  to  leave  her  communion,"  but  "to 
cleave  to  her  to  the  last  extremity."  The  strong  minority  for 
Reform  in  the  Conference  of  1824  is  made  the  ground  that  at  the 
next  "we  may  expect  to  realize  our  hopes."  Cooperation  is 
invited  from  all  who  favor  governmental  changes.  Signed  by 
Jennings,  Chairman  of  Committee,  and  French,  Secretary. 
1  Bassett's  "History,"  p.  41. 


CHAPTER  IV 


The  denial  of  the  General  Conference  of  lay  rights ;  Snethen's  views  ;  expecta- 
tions and  disappointments  as  to  the  issue  —  The  question  of  Lay-Representation 
traversed  fally ;  arguments  on  both  sides  considered  ;  Dr.  Neely's  chain  broken 
—  Snethen  states  it  for  his  opponents,  etc. — The  Repository  discontinued; 
reasons  for  it;  dissatisfaction;  the  Mutual  Rights,  August,  1824  — The  con- 
troversy joined  by  both  parties;  the  Mutual  Rights  admitted  papers  on  both 
sides;  the  Methodist  Magazine  declined  —  Union  Societies;  their  object  —  Pre- 
siding Elder  Devany  and  Dr.  Armistead,  with  Drs.  Jennings  and  French  in  re- 
ply ;  Shinn  on  the  situation  —  Bitter  opposition  to  the  Mutual  Rights ;  amusing 
illustration  of  it — Spread  of  the  Union  Societies  in  every  direction  —  Reform 
as  a  Principle  and  an  Idea ;  the  American  Revolution  based  on  a  principle  and 
an  idea  solely — Snethen  and  Shinn  keep  the  Reformers  from  seceding  prema- 
turely —  Contributors  to  the  several  volumes  of  the  Mutual  Rights ;  Bascom  as 
a  Reformer  and  contributor  —  First  Expulsions  in  Tennessee  —  The  StiUwell 
Reformers. 

"But  if  by  *  rights  and  privileges'  it  is  intended  to  signify 
something  foreign  from  the  institutions  of  the  Church  as  we 
received  them  from  our  fathers,  pardon  us  if  we  know  no  such 
rights,  if  we  do  not  comprehend  such  privileges,"  The  epigram 
was  upon  every  tongue,  startling  as  a  revelation  to  the  Reformers 
for  its  calm  effrontery  and  unlimited  arrogation;  while  to  anti- 
reformers  it  was  chewed  as  a  juicy  portion  —  a  death  draught  to 
innovations  and  innovators.  In  1822  Snethen  had  written,  "It 
cannot  be  long,  I  am  fully  persuaded,  before  the  travelling 
preachers  must  give  up  their  supremacy."  And  in  1823  he  de- 
clared: "The  assumption  of  right  on  the  part  of  the  travelling 
preachers  must,  I  hold,  be  formally  and  publicly  disavowed  by 
them.  Is  it  not  evident,  that  if  the  friends  and  patrons  of  the 
legislative  rights  of  the  church  are  resolved  to  maintain  them 
(and  how  can  they  do  otherwise),  and  the  travelling  preachers 
refuse  to  surrender  them,  there  must  be  a  division?  Let  no  one 
say,  if  so,  the  sooner  the  better;  but  rather  let  the  Church  give 
the  travelling  preachers  a  reasonable  time  and  a  fair  opportunity 
to  make  a  surrender  with  as  much  willingness  as  possible."  Once 
more :  "  When  I  lose  all  hope  that  the  travelling  preachers  will 
in  due  time  refuse  legislation  for  the  Church,  I  shall  lose  my 

64 


SNETHEN'S  FORLORN  HOPE 


65 


affection  for  them  also.  At  present  I  am  disposed  to  consider 
their  pertinacity  as  the  effects  of  ignorance  or  want  of  reflection 
or  error  in  judgment,  either  of  which  it  will  require  time  and 
judicious  management  to  overcome.  But  I  place  the  greatest 
reliance  upon  time."  He  had  discouraged  the  idea  of  a  personal 
representation  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  and  the  advice 
was  taken,  lest  it  should  be  averred,  "  The  enemy  is  at  the  gates  " 
and  "the  standard  of  revolt  is  raised."  "My  plan  therefore  is 
that  we  continue  to  encourage  our  friends  to  write,  and  by  their 
writing  to  disseminate  principles,  and  leave  the  General  Confer- 
ence as  free  from  any  cause  of  fear  or  restraint  as  may  be,  and 
thus  give  them  a  fair  opportunity  to  make  a  voluntary  surrender 
of  a  power,  the  right  of  which  they  ought  to  disclaim."  This 
was  nine  months  before  the  Conference  met.  What  must  have 
been  his  perturbation  and  disappointment  when  by  this  one  fell 
swoop  all  rights  were  absolutely  denied  to  any  participation  in 
the  government.  Still  he  did  not  despair,  though  it  touched  the 
very  heart  of  the  issue  made  by  the  lay-representationists, —  "  the 
right  of  suffrage  is  the  original  and  fundamental  principle  which 
has  extended  through  two  volumes  of  the  Repository. This  was 
written  in  the  third  volume,  and  the  purpose  was  steadily  kept 
in  view  down  to  1828,  except  by  the  limited  number  of  whom 
Kelso  and  Bond  were  the  exponents,  who  placed  their  demand  on 
the  score  of  expediency.  In  1822  he  wrote,  "  Church  representa- 
tion is  perfectly  compatible  with  any  fair  construction  of  either 
of  the  restrictions,  or  of  episcopacy  and  general  superintendency." 
As  late  as  1835  he  declared :  "  I  go  for  no  half -measures  or  ex- 
pedients or  accommodations.  They  will  have  all  or  none,  their 
determination  follows  from  their  religious  belief  in  their  divine 
right  to  all.  Who  can  meet  them  upon  this  ground  with  any 
belief  or  right  short  of  religious  and  divine?  Claim  your  divine 
right,  children.  Let  no  man  take  your  crown  of  educated 
equality.  Deem  it  no  usurpation  or  sacrifice  if  the  gospel  of  the 
grace  of  God,  as  the  law  of  God  did  David,  should  make  you 
wiser  than  even  your  teachers."  Further :  "  But  I  rest  quite  easy 
in  the  confidence  that  when  the  time  come  (and  that  it  surely  will 
come)  to  give  these  essays  an  impartial  reading,  that  the  reader 
will  see  that  all  the  ambition  I  could  have  was,  first,  to  aid  and 
assist  the  travelling  preachers,  to  admit  by  a  direct  and  imme- 
diate process  of  their  own  legislation  the  check-giving  principle 
of  lay-representation;  and,  second,  if  they  not  only  refused,  but 
returned  evil  for  good,  and  drive  us  from  the  church,  they  should 


VOL.  n  —  F 


66 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


be  compelled  to  make  retribution  to  offended  liberty  and  equality 
with  their  own  hands." 

It  was  kindred  with  another  purpose  which  he  held  sacred,  and 
in  which  he  was  also  followed  by  most  of  the  Reformers,  viz., 
never  to  secede ;  and  yet  he  realized  with  philosophical  acumen 
its  gravity.  To  reform  and  not  divide  is  much  more  difficult 
in  Church  than  in  State."  He  never  lost  sight  of  the  secession 
of  0' Kelly  and  its  deplorable  results  upon  the  whole  connection; 
it  was  to  him  a  danger-beacon.  And  so  he  hopefully  counselled 
in  August,  1823 :  "  Let  us  furnish  history  with  at  least  one  ex- 
ample of  a  church  achieving  its  rights  from  the  hands  of  its 
preachers,  without  the  loss  of  confidence  and  affection,  and  with- 
out division.  Such  a  record  will  be  scarcely  less  honorable  to 
the  preachers  than  to  ourselves.  For  though  it  must  appear  that 
they  held  power  to  which  they  had  no  right,  their  readiness  in 
yielding  it  will  prove  that  their  hearts  were  not  hardened  by  the 
love  of  it."  Alas!  he  did  not  see  with  the  clear  vision  of  the 
astute  John  Emory  the  unyielding  nature  of  intrenched  power : 
"  Remember  the  tenacious  grasp  with  which  power  is  held  when 
once  acquired.  Its  march  is  ever  onward  and  its  tremendous 
tendency  is  to  accumulation." 

This  is  as  good  a  connection  as  any  other  to  traverse  the  ques- 
tion of  lay-exclusion  from  governmental  participation,  on  its 
logical  and  factual  merits.  It  is  an  admitted  canon  in  all  fair 
polemics  that  the  argument  of  your  adversary  must  not  be  stated 
with  less  cogency  than  its  strongest  expression.  It  is  accepted, 
premising  only,  as  axiomatic,  that  there  is  room  for  searching 
investigation,  and  a  presumption  of  fundamental  wrong  when  the 
votaries  of  an  ecclesiastical  or  civil  system  are  compelled  always 
to  assume  an  apologetic  attitude.  It  is  true  of  all  the  hierarchies 
of  the  world  from  Czar  Nicholas  to  Pope  Leo ;  but  no  one  thinks 
of  apologizing  for  the  English  or  the  American  Constitution,  or 
the  polity  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  constitutionally 
embodied.  In  all  the  writer's  searching  he  has  found  no  such 
statement  of  exclusive  ministerial  rights  as  that  recently  made 
by  Rev.  Dr.  T.  B.  Neely  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church :  — 

"  The  original  governing  power  is  vested  in  the  ministry.  In 
the  beginning  it  belonged  to  Wesley,  and  then  it  passed  to  the 
Conference  of  ministers.  The  logical  explanation  of  this  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  in  the  historical  evolution  of  Methodism  the  minis- 
try was  first  to  come  into  existence.  Thus  Mr.  Wesley  preached 
Methodism  before  there  was  a  Methodist  laity.    The  society  did 


LAY  EXCLUSION  LOGICALLY  CONSIDERED  67 


not  make  him,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  made  the  Methodist 
society.  He  preached  and  gathered  the  people,  and  the  people 
came  under  his  authority.  Then  he  made  the  preachers,  and  the 
preachers  gathered  the  people  and  formed  other  societies.  Logi- 
cally and  historically  the  preachers  were  first,  and  the  laity  after- 
ward. Later  the  power  Wesley  possessed  went  to  the  Conference 
called  the  Legal  Hundred  in  England,  while  in  America  it  passed 
to  the  Conference  of  preachers,  who  organized  the  Church  and 
made  the  laws,  while  the  people  voluntarily  accepted  this  Con- 
ference government.  As  the  supreme  governing  power  was  in 
the  Conference  of  ministers,  the  constitution-making  power  vested 
in  the  same  body,  and  when  the  body  of  ministers  came  to  make 
a  constitution  in  1808  it  naturally  reserved  to  itself  the  right  and 
power  to  pass  upon  and  agree  to  any  amendment  before  any  change 
could  be  made  in  the  constitution  which  it  had  created.  This 
right,  therefore,  of  a  primary  or  final  voice  in  amending  the  con- 
stitution vests  in  the  ministry  by  the  logic  of  history  and  the 
nature  of  constitutional  authority."  ^ 

It  is  not  new,  but  as  old  as  the  first  agitation  of  it  more  than 
a  hundred  years  ago:  the  preachers  were  instrumental  in  the 
conversion  of  the  laity,  were  before  them,  and  therefore  have  a 
right  to  govern  them.  Perhaps  a  kind  of  reductio  ad  absurdum, 
as  the  dialecticians  say,  will  be  the  best  method  of  confutation 
of  this  argument  of  so  much  plausible  seeming.  The  apostles 
and  their  successors  in  the  primitive  Church  of  Christ  were  first; 
without  them  there  could  have  been  no  Church ;  the  Church  did 
not  make  the  apostles,  the  apostles  made  the  Church,  and  there- 
fore—  what?  Without  an  array  of  the  New  Testament  data  — 
the  facts  of  sacred  history  —  let  Snethen  state  the  result  of  the 
research  for  its  example  of  church  government,  with  the  safe 
assumption  that  no  one  will  be  rash  enough  seriously  to  challenge 
it :  "  There  is  not  an  example  in  all  the  New  Testament  of  apos- 
tles, bishops,  or  any  other  description  of  church  officers,  trying 
and  expelling  church  members,  without  the  aid  or  cooperation  of 
the  church;  nor  of  apostles,  elders,  or  churches  legislating  or 

1  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  1894.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  Dr. 
Neely,  or  if  it  did,  he  wisely,  for  his  purpose,  ignores  the  facts  that  the  local 
preachers,  Strawbridge,  Embury,  Captain  Webb,  and  others,  with  Barbara  Heck, 
as  representing  the  womanhood  of  the  early  societies,  were  before  the  preachers 
who  assembled  in  1784,  and  not  a  few  of  them  were  the  converts  of  these  men,  so 
that  without  them  and  Barbara  Heck  there  would  have  been  no  Methodist  Society 
in  America,  etc.,  so  that  the  first  link  of  his  chain-argument  is  missing,  and  this 
invalidates  it  —  it  is  a  genuine  sophism. 


68 


niSTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


making  laws  for  any  church  without  its  consent."  He  exhaus- 
tively considers  the  subject  in  his  essay  on  ^'A  View  of  the 
Primitive  Church  and  its  Government "  and  ^'  The  Feudal  System." 
The  dictum  is  a  safe  one;  the  examples  of  the  New  Testament 
ecclesiasticism  are  utterly  subversive  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
polity  in  both  its  genius  and  its  development.  Volumes  have 
been  written  to  prove  apologetically  the  converse  —  with  what 
avail  let  any  impartial  investigator  decide.  No  one  can  honestly 
enter  upon  the  task  and  not  find  himself  logically  delivered  to 
the  Eoman  hierarchy.  If  you  search  for  a  strong  government, 
there  you  can  find  it,  and  in  like  manner  under  its  various  modi- 
fications down  to  the  anomalous  one  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  but  for  a  Scriptural  one  you  cannot  find  it.  Apropos  of 
Dr.  Neely's  argument  let  a  layman,  through  the  same  medium 
and  about  the  same  time  and  on  the  germane  issue  of  lay-repre- 
sentation, answer :  — 

The  proposition  for  delay  by  this  time  has  a  familiar  sound. 
I  remember  that  ten  years  ago  at  Philadelphia,  when  some  propo- 
sition was  made  looking  to  reform  in  this  matter,  Dr.  Neely  said 
he  was  not  prepared  to  consider  the  subject.  He  still  thinks  the 
time  for  action  has  not  come.  Whenever  it  has  been  proposed 
to  make  the  lay-representation  equal  to  the  ministerial,  the  ready 
objection  has  been  that  it  would  make  the  General  Conference 
too  large.  When  it  is  proposed  to  begin  at  the  other  end,  and 
somewhat  reduce  the  numbers,  so  as  to  make  room  for  a  fair  rep- 
resentation of  the  laity,  the  same  parties  are  equally  ready  with 
the  advice  to  wait  till  a  more  convenient  season.  This  persistent 
repression  is  calculated  to  work  injury  to  the  Church.  The  fact 
is,  that  the  admission  of  laymen  to  the  General  Conference  at  all 
has  settled  it  that  the  preachers  have  no  peculiar  prerogative  of 
legislation.  They  are  ordained  to  be  *  faithful  dispensers  of  the 
word  of  God  and  of  His  hol}^  sacraments,'  but  not  as  lawgivers. 
Tt  is  too  late  in  the  history  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
to  claim  that  the  ministry  have  any  inherent  and  seclusive  right 
of  legislation.  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  immodest  to  say  (taking 
an  illustration  from  figures  which  I  have  at  hand)  that  the  fifty- 
five  thousand  lay-members  within  the  bounds  of  New  York  East 
Conference  can  furnish  as  many  men  who  could  legislate  intelli- 
gently and  wisely  as  can  be  selected  from  the  somewhat  less  than 
three  hundred  ministers  of  the  same  Conference.  We  must  come 
to  the  point  of  giving  ec^ual  representation  to  both  orders,  and 
the  sooner  and  the  more  gracefully  it  is  done,  the  better." 


''MUTUAL  BIGHTS''  VS.  ''WESLEYAN  REPOSITORY''  69 


For  such  reasoning  as  this,  and  as  miklly  put,  laymen  sixty 
years  ago  were  ignominiously  expelled  the  Church.  Another 
argument  direct,  Snethen  himself  furnished  for  the  sake  of  it, 
and  more  cogently  than  any  of  his  opponents  could  state  it:  "  The 
duty  and  purity  of  the  Church  cannot  continue  without  discipline, 
and  discipline  cannot  be  maintained  without  exclusive  power  in 
the  travelling  preachers  to  make  and  execute  rules.  Take  away, 
or  qualify,  or  limit  the  power  of  the  travelling  preachers,  and 
there  can  be  no  government;  take  away  government,  and  there 
can  be  no  religion.  If  it  were  not  for  this  means,  says  a  zealous 
member,  we  should  not  be  better  than  other  people;  and  if  it 
were  not,  says  another,  we  should  lose  all  our  religion ;  but  the 
zealous  itinerant  don^t  lay  so  much  stress  upon  these  minor  mat- 
ters ;  the  inference  from  his  argument  is,  that  neither  a  Saviour, 
nor  grace,  nor  sacraments,  nor  good  preaching,  nor  anything  else 
can  save  us  from  ruin,  without  itinerant  power."  That  such  a 
chain  of  inconsequents  should  be  entertained  seriously  by  any 
one  is  in  proof  how  readily  the  human  mind  under  prepossession 
receives  a  fallacy.  The  collateral  arguments  apologetic  of  lay- 
exclusion  are  more  numerous,  and  if  anything  more  sophistical, 
and,  as  will  be  discovered,  some  of  them  in  the  desperation  of 
extremity  positively  unchristian.  They  will  be  noticed  as  they 
develop. 

Stockton  had  completed  arrangements  to  continue  the  Reposi- 
tory in  Philadelphia,  but  the  dominant  Baltimore  element  pre- 
ferred a  reconstruction  more  directly  under  the  control  and 
patronage  of  the  inchoately  organized  Eeformers.  The  Reposi- 
tory had  been  published  at  a  loss  by  its  editor  and  proprietor, 
and  representative  Methodism  throughout  the  world  can  never 
repay  his  self-sacrificing  and  heroic  labors  in  its  behalf.  Its  dis- 
continuance caused  dissatisfaction.^  This  and  the  injection  of 
the  local  preachers'  demands,  Stockton  affirms,  materially  dam- 
aged the  cause  in  Philadelphia.  The  action  of  the  Baltimore 
Reformers  did  not  materialize  until  the  ensuing  August.  Mean- 
while the  effect  of  the  sweeping  arrogation  of  the  General  Con- 

1  W.  S.  Stockton,  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Western  Recorder  for  February, 
March,  and  April,  1850,  gives  a  history  of  the  Wesleyan  Repository,  and  an  iden- 
tification of  all  the  writers,  but  he  gives  no  specific  reason  for  its  discontinuance 
after  April,  1824,  though  evidently  chagrined  by  that  action.  Dr.  S.  K.  Jen- 
nings, in  his  "  Exposition,"  page  50,  assigns  as  the  reason :  *'  The  Repository  had 
been  so  resisted  by  the  friends  of  power  that  it  had  become  necessary  to  exchange 
it  for  the  Mutual  Rights.  Experience  had  demonstrated  the  necessity  of  sustain- 
ing the  periodical  by  the  organization  of  Union  Societies." 


70 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ference  was  diverse.  Not  a  few  were  intimidated  by  it,  specially 
among  the  Itinerants.  It  became  evident  that  the  Episcopal 
party,  with  the  spirit  of  Asbury  himself,  as  now  interpreted  by 
M'Kendree  and  Soule,  had  taken  a  stand  from  which  there  could 
be,  in  their  view  of  it,  no  retreat.  Repression  of  Reform  was  in 
the  air;  extirpation  was  held  in  reserve.  Hamilton's  dictum  — 
power  over  a  man's  substance  is  power  over  his  will  —  so  worked 
that  nearly  all  the  comparatively  large  number  of  the  travelling 
preachers  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  claims  of  the  laity  sub- 
sided or  recanted.  Others,  however,  like  Asa  Shinn,  needed  such 
a  stimulus  to  rouse  their  lion  courage.  The  saintly  but  fearless 
Truman  Bishop  and  others  could  not  brook  the  defiant  and  arro- 
gant position  of  their  ministerial  brethren,  and,  after  exhausting 
all  powers  of  reasoning  and  persuasion,  espoused  openly  their 
cause.  In  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburgh,  as  well  as  Baltimore  and 
other  places,  where  the  seeds  of  Reform  had  been  securely  planted, 
parties  were  formed  and  social  Methodism  felt  the  shock  of  irrec- 
oncilable difference  of  opinion.  Dr.  John  French  led  the  move- 
ment in  Virginia  and  Dr.  Bellamy  in  North  Carolina,  and  the 
memorial  of  the  Roanoke  District  conference  and  its  Circular  to 
the  general  Church  are  among  the  most  masterly.  Christian,  and 
effective  of  the  many  addressed  to  the  General  Conference.  The 
full  text  may  be  found  in  Paris's  "History."  The  crimination 
and  recrimination  grew  apace.  From  arguments  to  epithets  the 
way  was  short.  Those  who  favored  changes  in  the  government 
were  stigmatized  as  "Backsliders;  under  the  influence  of  base 
motives;  opposers  of  God;  instigated  by  the  devil;  enemies  of 
Methodism,"  while  their  opponents  denounced  their  Church  neigh- 
bors as  "Bishops'  men,  traitors,  cowards,  etc."  Not  a  few  of  the 
recusants  withdrew  their  support,  discouraged  by  the  strife  that 
was  engendered,  while  the  side  issue  of  the  local  preachers  did 
more  than  anything  else  to  shadow  the  great  principle  of  lay-rep- 
resentation with  itinerants,  and  yet  this  issue  was  intrinsically 
reasonable  and  earnestly  pressed  by  the  locality,  —  the  origina- 
tors of  Methodism  in  America. 

August,  1824,  the  first  number  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  etc., 
appeared.  It  took  for  its  motto  a  sentiment  of  Bishop  Burnet's: 
"What  moderation  or  charity  we  owe  to  men's  persons,  we  owe 
none  at  all  to  their  errors,  and  to  that  frame  which  is  built  on 
and  supported  by  them."  It  was  a  forty-page  octavo  monthly, 
printed  for  the  committee  by  John  T.  Toy.  Its  contents  were 
Editorial  Address,  signed  by  the  chairman,  Samuel  K.  Jennings, 


INITIAL  NUMBER  OF  MUTUAL  EIGHTS 


71 


which  set  forth  the  objects  of  the  publication  "  to  realize  to  the 
Church  a  practical  understanding  of  the  title  it  assumes.  This 
can  be  done  only  through  the  medium  of  a  free  press."  "Well- 
written  communications  on  any  of  the  above  subjects  (Mutual 
Eights,  etc.)  will  be  thankfully  received,  and  the  utmost  impar- 
tiality observed  by  the  Committee."  This  was  so  largely  availed 
of  by  the  enemies  of  Reform  that  at  the  end  of  the  first  volume 
the  Committee  had  to  admonish  them,  so  great  was  the  latitude 
of  severe  personalities  in  which  they  indulged,  that  only  argu- 
ments could  be  admitted  from  them  in  future.  It  was  in  broad 
contrast  with  the  Methodist  Magazine,  under  Bangs  and  Emory, 
which  admitted  nothing  but  attacks  upon  the  Reformers.  This 
statement  is  indisputable.  For  proof  examine  the  respective 
volumes.  The  meeting  of  the  Reformers  May  21,  and  their 
Circular,  as  also  that  of  the  General  Conference  in  full,  followed 
by  the  first  of  two  articles  by  "Baltimore"  James  Smith,  in 
review  of  the  last  Circular,  dissecting  it  into  shreds ;  also  an  open- 
ing article,  "Review  of  Some  of  the  Acts  of  the  General  Con- 
ference," with  a  full  roster  of  the  members;  an  "Essay  on  the 
Rights  of  the  Laity  to  Church  Representation,"  No.  1,  by  "Nehe- 
miah  "  (Alexander  McCaine) ;  Constitution  of  the  Union  Society 
of  Baltimore;  Address  of  the  Presiding  Elder  of  Norfolk,  Va., 
Benjamin  Devany,  late  member  of  the  Conference,  to  the  Church 
in  that  District,  republished  from  the  Norfolk  Herald,  a  secular 
paper,  and  a  reply  to  it  by  John  French;  "Geological  Phe- 
nomena," by  Horace  H.  Hayden,  geologist,  a  series  of  a  masterly 
nature  running  through  several  numbers;  a  miscellany  of  prose 
and  poetry.  The  high  literary  standard  of  the  Repository  was 
fully  kept  up  in  the  new  publication.  The  Baltimore  Union 
Society  was  the  first  formed,  and  its  Constitution  sets  forth  as 
its  primary  object,  "to  ascertain  the  number  of  persons  in  the 
Methodist  Church  who  are  friendly  to  such  alteration  (the  ex- 
clusive right  of  the  ministers  to  make  *  rules  and  regulations 
to  raise  societies  in  all  parts  of  these  United  States,  to  correspond 
with  each  other  on  si^ch  subjects  as  they  may  believe  calculated 
to  improve  our  church  polity."  The  Mutual  Rights  is  placed  by 
the  Society  under  an  editorial  committee,  and  provision  made 
that  any  other  member  of  a  Union  Society  in  any  place  could  vote 
at  the  annual  meeting  his  preference  for  said  Committee.  The 
first  elected  were  Jennings,  Chairman,  McCaine,  Williams,  Kes- 
ley,  Harrod,  Thomas,  Emmerson,  and  Bordley. 

The  Union  Societies  by  first  intention  were  designed  as  a  test 


72 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  the  second  reason  assigned  by  the  General  Conference  for 
refusing  the  petitions  of  the  Reformers, —  ''Because  it  presup- 
poses that  either  the  authority  of  the  General  Conference  to 
'make  rules  and  regulations  '  for  the  Church,  or  the  manner  in 
which  this  authority  has  been  exercised,  is  displeasing  to  the 
Church:  the  reverse  of  which  we  believe  to  be  true."  It  was 
claimed  as  a  sufficient  answer  that  "  not  one  in  one  hundred  of  the 
membership"  were  known  to  favor  Reform.  It  was  true  that 
they  numbered  at  this  time  actively  not  over  five  thousand,  per- 
haps, for  this  was  the  probable  number  the  Repository  had 
reached,  or  one  in  fifty  of  the  membership,  and  even  this  number 
is  a  marvel  when  the  concerted  effort  of  those  in  authority  to 
repress  and  destroy  it  is  taken  into  consideration ;  yet  the  Re- 
formers were  willing  to  abide  by  this  challenge,  if  when  all  the 
membership  had  been  reached  it  could  be  shown  that  they  were 
in  such  a  minority.  But  no  one  knew  better  than  the  bishops 
and  elders  that  wherever  the  true  purpose  of  the  Reformers 
became  known,  it  was  approved  as  a  rule,  and  that  if  a  free  press 
was  undisturbed  in  disseminating  the  light,  it  would  soon  spread 
through  the  whole  Church.  The  point  is  trenchantly  covered  in 
the  Preface  to  the  first  volume  of  the  Mutual  Rights :  "  For  the 
recovery  of  the  mutual  rights  of  the  ministers  and  members  of 
the  Church  of  Christ  from  the  usurpation  and  tyranny  which  were 
sought  after  and  accomj-jlished  in  the  establishment  of  hierarchies, 
it  was  necessary  that  the  people  should  be  enlightened.  To  be 
patient  in  slavery  men  must  be  ignorant.  To  give  security  to 
masters,  ignorance  must  be  perpetuated.  These  maxims  are 
equally  true  in  Church  or  State.  Every  good  citizen  of  these 
United  States  will,  therefore,  be  tributary  to  the  information  of 
the  people,  and  every  good  member  of  the  great  commonwealth 
of  Christianity  will  love  the  equal  and  mutual  rights  of  her 
children." 

Devany,  the  Presiding  Elder  of  the  Norfolk  District,  under 
date  June  30,  1824,  took  advantage  of  the  publication  in  the 
Norfolk  Herald,  a  secular  paper,  of  the  Reformers'  first  Circular, 
probably  inserted  by  some  zealous  Reformer  or  the  editor  himself 
as  a  sensational  item,  to  review  the  Circular,  and  gives  in  it  the 
keynote  of  the  anti-reformers,  which  ran  through  all  the  subse- 
quent literature  of  that  side,  except  the  '*  purse-string  "  argument. 
As  already  found,  Devany's  review  was  promptly  republished  in 
the  Mutual  Rights  without  his  request,  the  editorial  Committee 
thus  inviting  free  discussion  under  the  conviction  that  the  cause 


ANTI-REFORMERS'  ARGUMENT  STATED 


73 


of  Reform  must  be  the  gainer  by  it.  That  keynote  may  be  here 
given  in  fairness  to  them,  as  well  as  to  anticipate  the  same  de- 
fensive reasoning,  which  was  repeated  and  answered  in  almost 
endless  iteration  for  six  years  to  come,  and  which  if  disposed  of 
now  will  save  space  in  the  end.  He  said  to  the  Reformers  and 
the  laymen  of  his  district  and  elsewhere :  "  When,  my  brethren, 
did  we  as  a  body  of  ministers  deprive  you  of  any  of  your  ecclesi- 
astical power?  Do  you  not  possess  as  much  power  now  as  you 
ever  did,  and  are  you  not  governed  in  the  same  way  that  ever 
you  were?  If  so,  how  can  it  be  said  that  we  govern  you  without 
your  consent  ?  Ever  since  the  organization  of  our  Church,  the 
power  has  virtually  rested  with  the  laity.  Do  you  not  recom- 
mend members  of  your  own  class  to  the  proper  authorities  of  the 
Church  to  be  licensed  to  preach,  or  to  be  admitted  into  the  travel- 
ling connection?  Are  you  not  apprised  that  if  they  are  admitted 
they  will  possess  all  the  powers  of  an  itinerant  minister?  If  so, 
you  not  only  consent  for  them  to  rule  you  according  to  the  exist- 
ing rules  and  regulations  of  our  Church,  but  you  virtually  choose 
them  to  be  your  rulers  in  the  order  of  Providence. Again:  "No 
man  or  body  of  men  have  the  right  to  disturb  the  peace  and  har- 
mony of  the  Church  of  which  he  or  they  may  be  members.  You 
have  entered  the  Church  with  the  discipline  in  your  hands,  and 
now  if  you  are  dissatisfied  with  the  rules,  so  far  from  wishing  to 
govern  you  without  your  conseiit,  we  would  advise  you  to  go  to 
some  other,  more  congenial  with  your  views,  or  set  up  for  your- 
selves, and  form  such  rules  and  regulations  as  will  best  secure  to 
you  all  those  rights  and  privileges  for  which  you  contend." 

In  this  day  it  is  difficult  for  either  friend  or  foe  of  the  ancient 
Reform  question  to  characterize  such  specious  utterances,  the 
former  for  lack  of  patience  and  the  latter  for  very  shame.  And 
yet  they  did,  both  ministers  and  laymen,  labor  with  the  crudi- 
ties and  sophistries  and  solecisms,  meeting  them  under  all  their 
kaleidoscopic  changes,  pouring  the  search-light  of  common  sense 
and  matter  of  fact  upon  them,  until  a  modern  historian  of  these 
events  is  fatigued  with  the  heavy  inanities  called  arguments. 
Dr.  French,  in  his  reply,  takes  the  short  method  with  Devany, — 
a  method  of  all  others  the  most  distasteful  to  the  authorities, 
viz.,  fair,  full,  and  open  discussion  of  the  issues.  French  said: 
"  If  there  be  such  clearness  of  propriety  (as  you  seem  to  suppose 
there  is)  in  the  present  system,  if  the  government  of  the  church 
is  as  abundantly  supported  by  reason  and  revelation  as  you  would 
have  us  believe,  why  all  this  proscribing  of  investigation?  Why 


74 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFOBM 


all  this  systematic  and  official  persecution?  Are  you  afraid  the 
people  have  not  common  sense  enough  to  understand  plain  argu- 
ments? If  your  cause  is  so  good,  and  its  goodness  so  easy  to 
make  appear  as  you  seem  to  insinuate,  why  not  come  out  and  let 
us  hear  your  reasons?  We  not  only  promise  to  hear  them,  but 
we  have  promised  to  print  and  circulate  them  for  you.  We  think 
this  course  would  disturb  the  repose  of  the  Church  much  less,  and 
is  much  less  calculated  to  stir  up  angry  feelings,  than  the  one 
which  you  have  chosen  —  but  in  a  bad  cause  anything  is  preferred 
to  reason."  As  to  leaving  the  Church  with  the  obloquy  of  a 
secession,  no  congenial  ecclesiasticism  extant  to  which  they  could 
go,  and  the  obstacles  of  a  new  organization  gigantic  and  almost 
insurmountable,  well  has  the  sweet-tempered  Snethen  met  the 
hard-hearted  suggestion:  "Are  not  those  who  know  their  rights 
under  the  necessity  of  continuing  to  know  them?  Can  any  length 
of  time  in  which  men  forbear  to  exercise  their  rights  give  to 
others  the  title  to  exercise  them  in  their  stead  without  their  con- 
sent? Kather  from  the  nature  of  the  case  does  not  every  hour 
and  every  day  they  submit  their  rights  to  others  diminish  the 
pretensions  of  usurped  authority?  Though  men  who  know  noth- 
ing may  very  sincerely  fear  nothing,  yet  this  cannot  be  the  case 
with  those  who  apprehend  danger.  .  .  .  For  an  official  man  to 
request  preachers  or  members  to  withdraw,  is  an  offence  which 
can  only  be  exceeded  by  expelling  them  unjustly.  What  right 
has  a  man  to  browbeat  another  out  of  his  fellowship  because  he 
is  dissatisfied  with  an  existing  rule  which  is  made  alterable  by 
its  own  enactment?"    This  he  wrote  in  1822. 

The  Circular  of  Devany  was  answered  by  Dr.  Jennings  in  three 
letters  through  the  Norfolk  papers,  and  afterwards  republished 
in  the  Mutual  Mights.  Citation  is  unnecessary,  for  the  only 
points  made  have  already  been  covered.  It  brought  to  the  front, 
however,  as  a  champion  of  the  old  order  of  things.  Dr.  Robert  A. 
Armistead  of  Virginia.  He  took  advantage  of  the  offer  of  a  "  free 
press  "  by  the  Reformers,  and  was  allowed  every  privilege.  He 
was  a  stronger  writer  than  Devany,  but  instead  of  confining  him- 
self to  the  issues  raised  by  him,  he  entered  upon  the  merits  of 
the  historical  question  at  large.  Still  he  was  allowed  all  the 
space  he  asked,  the  editorial  Committee  prefacing  his  first  paper 
with  the  just  remark,  "The  course  pursued  by  the  writer  to  secure 
an  admission  into  our  pages  makes  it  improper  for  us  to  reject 
his  piece."    He  was  answered  by  Jennings. 

Dr.  Waters  graced  the  pages  of  the  periodical  with  several 


CONTROVERSY  WAXES  WARMER 


75 


sermons  of  classical  finish  and  force.  "  One  of  the  Laity  "  from 
Philadelphia,  probably  J.  F.  Watson,  was  also  permitted  to  defend 
the  old  system.  McCaine  continued  his  masterful  strictures  free 
from  acrimony,  though  Dr.  Armistead  soon  began  to  impugn  the 
motives  of  the  Eeformers,  a  specimen  of  which  is  as  follows, 
"  that  from  motives  of  personal  aggrandizement  or  sensuality ,  these 
men  are  unduly  intermeddling  with  the  affairs  of  the  Church." 
In  February,  1825,  Snethen  began  a  series  of  six  papers  on  Church 
Property,  showing  conclusively  that  in  a  contest  of  power  with 
principle  the  former  has  its  empire  in  exclusive  control  of  the 
property.  They  added  fuel  to  the  controversial  flame,  as  the  fact 
was  vehemently  denied  by  the  opposition.  Kev.  James  E.  Wil- 
liams entered  the  lists  as  a  Reformer  and  showed  his  ability  to 
handle  the  discussion  with  good  temper  and  perspicuity.  His 
pseudonym  was  "Amicus."  Dr.  Armistead  continued  to  write 
and  is  reviewed  by  McCaine  and  others.  He  assumed  the  role 
of  a  prophet,  and  in  this  must  be  quoted:  "They"  (the  terms 
"  delegate  "  and  "  constituents  ")  "  never  will  be  known,  nor  will 
they  be  incorporated  in  our  vocabulary  while  Methodism  con- 
tinues." It  was  entirely  consistent;  the  right  was  denied  and 
the  expediency  scouted. 

About  fifteen  years  later,  when  Dr.  E.  Yeates  Reese,  then  editor 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  ventured  upon  a  counter  prediction : 
"  Lay-delegation  is  a  certain  futurity  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,"  the  whole  family  of  Advocates,  North  and  South,  met 
it  with  derisive  incredulity  and  jocular  denial.  And  it  did  take 
more  than  thirty  years  longer  before  the  leaven  of  the  "  Radical- 
ism "  of  1827-30  so  worked  and  persisted  that  their  General  Con- 
ference of  1872  took  favorable  action  on  the  subject.  It  seemed 
as  though  this  long  period  was  demanded  to  demonstrate  the 
dictum  of  Dr.  Emory  in  1824,  "  Remember  the  tenacious  grasp 
with  which  power  is  held  when  once  acquired."  In  April,  Asa 
Shinn,  under  the  incognito  "Bartimeus,"  published  a  calm, 
moderate,  and  convincing  "Address  to  the  Ministers  and  Mem- 
bers of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church."  In  it  his  logical  and 
analytical  mind  silms  up  the  case  in  these  points:  "It  is  true 
they  [the  Reformers]  ought  to  be  put  to  silence,  provided  it  is 
done  by  the  use  of  proper  means.  This  may  be  attempted  in  four 
ways.  First,  by  striving  to  convince  them  that  they  are  wrong, 
and  that  they  have  no  cause  to  object  to  any  part  of  our  ecclesias- 
tical government.  Second,  to  grant  their  request,  so  far  as  they 
can  support  it  by  Scripture  and  reason.    Third,  to  use  threatening, 


76 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


authority,  and  iiunisliment.  Fourth,  to  denounce  them  as  heretics, 
radicals,  and  schismatics;  to  refuse  them  a  hearing,  impeach  their 
motives,  and  put  as  much  uncandid  reproach  upon  them  as  pos- 
sible." He  pleads  for  fair  and  dispassionate  investigation  and 
discussion.  It  made  a  great  impression,  but  as  the  Methodist 
Magazine  did  not  dare  to  observe  the  comity  of  debate  by  pub- 
lishing it,  as  the  Mutual  Rights  allowed  space  to  its  opponents,  the 
Address  reached  but  a  limited  number.  The  character  and  reputa- 
tion of  Shinn  was  so  pure,  his  style  so  dispassionate,  his  logic  so 
clear-cut  and  indisputable,  no  direct  reply  was  ever  attempted. 

About  this  time  "  A  Travelling  Preacher  "  from  Pennsylvania 
wrote:  "Let  the  Mutual  Rights  work  its  way  for  four  years;  let 
the  people  read  during  the  time,  and  make  up  their  minds,  each 
man  for  himself.  Let  truth  be  calmly  and  forcibly  set  before 
them;  then  let  the  General  Conference  come,  and,  stratagem 
apart,  we  have  nothing  to  fear.  A  good  cause  so  circumstanced 
must  triumph."  It  was  the  whole  case  of  the  Reformers;  they 
asked  for  nothing  more.  "  Cincinnatus,"  E-ev.  Cornelius  Springer 
of  the  travelling  preachers  West,  resumes  his  contributions ;  he 
was  the  most  incisive  of  the  writers  except  McCaine.  "Plain 
Truth  "  from  Virginia  was  a  powerful  writer  for  Reform  in  various 
articles  in  this  first  volume,  but  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  identify 
him.  Rev.  Dr.  Bassett  informed  the  writer  years  ago,  that  in 
1850,  being  in  Baltimore  at  the  General  Conference,  he  waited 
upon  John  J.  Harrod,  the  venerable  ex-publisher  of  the  Mutual 
Rights,  in  company  with  E.  Yeates  Reese,  and  preferred  an  earnest 
request  that  he  would  go  through  the  bound  volumes  and  identify 
the  writers.  He  promised  to  do  so,  but  it  was  never  done,  and 
so  to-day  a  number  of  the  contributions  are  unverified  in  author- 
ship. "Zwingli,"  Gideon  Davis  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  began  a 
series  of  articles  in  the  last  (July)  number  of  the  first  volume. 
Clear  as  crystal  and  chaste  in  diction,  they  commanded  attention 
as  a  criterion  of  the  lay  calibre  engaged  on  the  side  of  Reform. 
Rev.  Dr.  John  French  reappears  under  his  proper  name,  and 
^VlcCaine  has  the  closing  article  on  Expediency.  It  was  intended 
to  supplement  his  series,  supporting  the  inalienable  right  of  the 
locality  and  laity,  and  is  a  calm,  forceful  presentation. 

The  periodical  was  gaining  a  much  Avider  circulation  than  the 
Repository,  and  wherever  it  went  it  made  converts  to  Reform. 
As  might  be  expected,  the  opposition  to  it  intensified  as  its 
popularity  increased.  Extra  copies  were  sent  to  tlie  address  of 
Reformers  for  distribution,  and  it  is  in  evidence  that  this  prac- 


PREACHER  OPPOSITION  TO  ''MUTUAL  RIGHTS''  77 


tice,  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  presiding  elders,  influence 
was  used  with  the  postmasters,  if  members  or  adherents  of  the 
Church,  to  refuse  delivery  and  destroy  them.  Much  secrecy  had 
to  be  observed  in  the  circulation,  for  if  a  member  was  known 
to  be  a  subscriber  or  a  reader,  he  was  put  under  suspicion  and 
marked  to  his  disadvantage.  It  will  serve  to  break  the  serious 
trend  of  these  remarks  to  cite  from  Rev.  Dr.  George  Brown's 
experience.  "When  the  Mutual  Eights  appeared,  I  ordered  it 
to  be  sent  to  nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  my  district  [he  was 
Elder  on  Monongahela  at  the  time],  and  paid  for  it  in  advance 
out  of  my  own  scanty  funds.  So  that  paper  was  read  in  all  parts 
of  the  district,  privately ;  for  a  time  even  the  preachers  were  not 
allowed  to  know  anything  about  it,  nor  did  any  one  suspect  my 
agency  in  the  matter.  On  the  subject  of  church  government  in 
public  and  in  private  I  maintained  a  most  profound  silence ;  and 
from  the  office  I  held  it  was  generally  supposed  that  I  was  un- 
friendly to  the  changes  contended  for,  and  the  periodical  was 
kept  very  carefully  out  of  sight  wherever  I  went.  When  dis- 
mounting from  my  horse  at  the  house  of  Thomas  Maple,  a  valu- 
able local  preacher,  to  whom  I  had  sent  the  paper,  I  heard  sister 
Maple  call  out  to  one  of  the  girls:  ^Run,  Sal,  run!  and  take  them 
Mutual  Eights  off  the  table ;  there  comes  the  Elder. '  And  '  Sal ' 
must  have  taken  and  concealed  them  in  some  by-corner,  for  they 
were  not  to  be  seen  during  my  stay.  So  it  was  in  all  places, 
no  one  being  disposed  to  let  me  know  that  he  read  so  obnoxious 
a  paper  as  the  Mutual  Eights. "  ^  It  was  severely  under  ban,  and 
yet  the  circulation  increased. 

Taking  their  cue  from  the  Baltimore  organization.  Union 
Societies  were  formed  North,  South,  East,  and  West,  wherever, 
in  fact,  the  MiUual  Eights  found  lodgment  and  a  nucleus  was 
gathered.  Specimens  of  the  Constitutions  may  be  found  in  the 
Mutual  Eights  ;  they  were  identical  in  purpose  with  that  of  Balti- 
more. The  organizers,  loyal  to  Methodism  if  not  to  the  hier- 
archy, did  not  dream  that  their  proceedings  could  be  construed 
as  a  violation  of  the  Discipline;  the  General  Conference  had 
stigmatized  their  numerical  inferiority  so  extremely  that  this 
method  was  proposed;  there  seemed  no  other  available,  to  ascer- 
tain the  sense  of  the  membership.  But  to  the  authorities  these 
societies  were  a  new  turn,  an  unexpected  phase ;  a  free  press  for 

1  "Recollections  of  Itinerant  Life,"  by  Rev.  George  Brown,  D.D.,  Cincinnati 
and  Springfield.  1863.  8vo.  456  pp.  Cloth.  With  steel  portrait.  For  citation, 
see  p.  125. 


78 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  cause  was  menacing  enough  to 
their  ancient  hold  of  power,  this  threatened  to  make  a  majority 
of  a  minority,  and  the  exasperation  following  the  discovery  knew 
no  bounds.  Let  them,  however,  be  judged  charitably;  they  had 
come  to  the  possession  of  a  peculiar  "system,"  which  made 
automata  of  the  individuals,  by  inheritance  from  the  "fathers." 
The  celebrated  Dr.  Priestley,  now  resident  in  Pennsylvania,  who 
had  been  a  close  philosophical  observer  of  it  both  in  England  and 
America,  wisely  says :  "  For  my  own  part  I  have  no  doubt  but 
that  the  leading  men  among  the  Methodists  were  influenced 
originally  by  none  but  the  best  motives,  a  general  concern  for 
the  souls  of  men.  Nothing  else,  I  think,  can  account  for  their 
conduct  as  they  were  circumstanced.  But  finding  themselves  by 
degrees  at  the  head  of  a  large  body  of  people,  and  in  possession 
of  considerable  power  and  influence,  they  must  not  have  been 
men  if  they  had  not  felt  the  love  of  power  gratified  in  such  a 
situation;  and  they  must  have  been  even  more  than  men,  if  their 
subsequent  conduct  had  not  been  more  or  less  influenced  by  it."  ^ 
As  to  the  fact  of  its  concentration,  let  Dr.  Coke,  as  cited  in  the 
first  volume,  be  again  called  to  witness.  In  1795  he  wrote: 
"  Hitherto  we  have  seen,  since  the  death  of  Mr.  Wesley,  the  most 
perfect  Aristocracy  existing,  perhaps,  on  earth.  The  people  have 
NO  power;  we  the  whole,  in  the  fullest  sense  ivhich  can  be  conceived. 
If  there  be  any  change  in  favor  of  religious  liberty,  the  iieople 
certainly  should  have  some  power."  They  had  come  to  believe 
the  "  system  "  everything,  the  fruitful  source  of  all  the  marvellous 
spiritual  results,  and  hence  it,  even  more  than  doctrines  and 
means  of  grace,  was  "Methodism."  So  to  oppose  the  system  was 
to  oppose  everything  sacred  in  memory  and  divine  in  origin;  how 
could  the  Head  of  the  Church  give  them  such  success  if  his  signet 
of  direct  approval  was  not  on  it?  That  it  could  be  improved  by 
any  innovations  was  simply  the  suggestion  of  backsliders  or  am- 
bitious people.  To  misrepresent  the  innovations  proposed  and 
to  impugn  the  motives  of  the  innovators  were  steps  certain  to 
follow.  The  young  preacher  looked  to  his  senior,  and  the  senior 
to  the  Elder,  and  he  did  not  think  of  doubting  or  inquiring  for 
himself  as  to  either.  The  confession  of  Snethen  in  the  former 
volume  as  to  his  prejudices  against  O'Kelly  thus  imbibed  covers 
a  multitude  of  like  cases.  Nor  must  it  be  inferred  that  intelli- 
gent laymen  were  few  who,  reasoning  from  the  preacliers'  prem- 
ises, did  not  sink  all  questions  of  right  and  expediency  in  the 

1  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  I.  p.  244. 


RATIONALE  OF  LAY-BEFOIiM 


79 


old  paths  and  the  good  way  they  and  their  fathers  had  known. 
Moreover,  two  considerations  were  all  powerful  with  many  in 
arresting  the  prevalence  of  the  new  opinions :  with  the  preachers 
the  Conference  had  control  of  their  support,  and,  as  shall  be 
exhibited  later,  the  will-power  of  even  strong  men  was  held  in 
abeyance  when  bread  was  the  weight  in  the  other  scale ;  with  the 
laity  these  preachers  were  the  instruments  of  their  conversion, — 
they  knew  them  to  be  good  men,  and  they  were  unwilling  to  dis- 
turb the  old  order  of  things  even  to  make  it  better,  if  the  preachers 
demurred.  A  much  larger  number,  however,  it  was  believed, 
were  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  for  an  "Idea,"  ^  like  the  Revo- 
lutionary fathers.  Liberty  was  an  abstraction,  for  what  did  the 
small  tax  upon  tea  or  the  Stamp  Act  amount  to  practically?  It 
could  not  be  called  an  oppression;  but  the  vital  point  on  which 
these  patriots  staked  their  "  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred 
honor  "  was  the  enactment  without  their  consent.  A  large  majority, 
it  was  believed,  were  with  Eeform,  but  the  authorities  did  not 
suffer  the  only  method  of  ascertaining  it  through  the  Union 
Societies  to  demonstrate  it.  And  here  Snethen's  dictum  must  be 
requoted:  "Power  combined  with  interest  and  inclination  cannot 
be  controlled  by  logic.  But  even  power  shrinks  from  the  test  of 
logic."  The  Heform  periodical  and  the  Union  Societies  were  such 
a  test  of  logic,  and  the  hierarchy  shrank  from  it.  They  held  the 
power  and  felt  no  inclination  of  surrender,  so  logic  could  not  con- 
trol.   There  was  a  last  resort :  Expel  Reform  out  of  the  Church. 

The  second  volume  of  the  Mutual  Rights  opens  with  a  prefatory 
statement  of  its  rule  of  conduct,  from  which  these  sentiments  are 
quoted :  "  They  trust  that  prudence,  candor,  and  moderation  will 
mark  their  progress ;  and  as  they  will  cultivate  an  honest  inten- 

1  Extract  from  a  letter  to  the  editors  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  pp.  386,  387,  May, 
1825,  from  a  Layman  of  Tennessee:  "And  it  is  no  less  strange  that  in  a  land  of 
freemen,  and  in  an  age  when  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  priests  to  make  laws 
for  the  church  and  state  without  their  consent,  is  universally  denied ;  such  a  body 
as  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  should  deny  the 
right  of  suffrage  to  her  members.  But  such  is  the  melancholy  fact,  as  appears 
from  the  circular  of  that  august  body  of  divines.  At  sight  of  this  I  despaired  of 
seeing  any  salutary  reform  shortly,  if  ever.  I  had  almost  concluded  to  unite  my- 
self with  some  dissenting  branch  of  the  Methodist  Church.  In  this  I  should  have 
done  violence  to  some  of  the  finest  feelings  of  my  nature.  But  on  seeing  the 
Mutual  Bights,  my  hopes  revived,  and  I  have  concluded  to  cleave  to  my  Church 
and  use  what  little  influence  I  may  have  in  disseminating  the  principles  of  reform. 
We  are  about  to  organize  a  Union  Society  in  this  place ;  you  will  hear  from  us 
after  our  next  meeting,  which  is  the  second  Saturday  in  May.  Our  Presiding 
Elder,  I  understand,  insinuates  something  like  trying  to  effect  our  expulsion. 
This  we  shall  risk." 


80 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


tion  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  religion  in  general,  and  the 
permanent  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  Methodist  Church  in  par- 
ticular, nothing  shall  induce  them  to  turn  aside  from  their  great 
object,  or  to  indulge  in  personal  altercation.  In  the  meantime, 
however,  they  renew  the  tender  of  their  columns  to  any  of  their 
brethren  in  the  opposition  who  will  set  forth  with  candor  and 
moderation  the  arguments  by  which  they  are  influenced  to  oppose 
a  change  in  our  church  government;  but  personal  detraction  or 
mere  declamation,  from  whichever  side  of  the  question,  will  not 
be  permitted.  The  Committee  take  this  opportunity  to  repeat 
the  declaration  to  their  brethren,  and  to  the  world,  that  they 
have  no  design  to  separate  from  the  Church,  much  less  to  divide 
it;  but  to  the  contrary  they  are  laboring  to  prevent  secession  and 
divisions ;  for  they  desire  most  sincerely  to  remain  in  the  com- 
munion and  fellowship  with  their  brethren  of  the  great  Methodist 
family  of  these  United  States."  As  the  whole  question  of  the 
subsequent  expulsions  will  turn  upon  this  conduct  of  the  periodi- 
cal, nothing  but  an  examination  of  the  volumes  by  the  impartial 
inquirer  can  determine  it,  and  therefore  the  writer  shall  have  on 
deposit  every  form  of  evidence  appealed  to  in  this  History  free 
to  the  research  of  every  such  inquirer. 

It  is  affirmed  that,  reasonably  construed,  the  editorial  Com- 
mittee adhered  to  their  purpose,  and  challenge  is  made  of  a 
parallel  to  the  liberal  and  Christian  spirit  which  offered  free  of 
cost  to  the  opposers  space  for  all  the  arguments  they  could  pro- 
duce. In  the  first  volume  they  availed  of  it  to  fully  one-third 
the  forty  pages  each  month  for  the  year.  The  second  volume  was 
not  so  freely  used,  but  ''One  of  the  Laity,"  John  F.Watson  of 
Philadelphia,  continued  to  use  the  Eeform  periodical  in  defence 
of  the  old  system.  To  reenforce  this  advertised  purpose  of  the 
editors,  Asa  Shinn  contributed  two  papers :  "  An  Address  to  the 
Reformers,"  which  for  the  Christlike  spirit  and  controversial 
moderation  have  never  been  excelled.  A  brief  extract  will  serve 
to  exhibit  the  animus:  "If  we  were  ever  under  obligation  to  act 
for  God  and  for  eternity,  in  any  period  of  our  lives,  we  are  surely 
under  obligation  at  this  eventful  crisis.  To  be  expelled  from  the 
Church,  or  to  withdraw  from  the  Church,  or  to  reform  the  Church, 
—  each  requires  the  most  serious  and  deliberative  exercise  of  the 
human  faculties,  and  ought  never  to  be  attempted  or  carried  into 
execution  under  the  influence  of  a  trifling,  prejudiced,  or  incon- 
siderate mind."  Snethen  followed  with,  a  like  appeal  on  "The 
Necessity  for  Union,"  and  the  records  w411  prove  that  these  two 


CONTROVERSIAL  FAIRNESS  OF  REFORMERS  81 


master  spirits  kept  in  subjection  the  impatient  element  among 
the  Keformers.  Gideon  Davis  continued  to  discuss  the  issues 
with  his  graceful  pen  and  faultless  spirit.  The  high  literary 
character  of  the  periodical  was  preserved.  Jennings,  the  classical 
scholar,  was  editor-in-chief,  and  nothing  crude  or  slovenly  was 
allowed  to  pass  his  critical  oversight.  The  report  of  the  editors 
to  the  Baltimore  Union  Society  showed  that  Eeform,  keeping 
step  with  the  circulation  of  the  paper,  had  spread  into  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Alabama  in  the  South;  and  Ohio, 
Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri  in  the 
West;  and  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Massachu- 
setts, and  even  Vermont,  while  Maryland  was  in  the  lead  for 
numbers  and  influence.  The  new  editorial  Committee  was  Jen- 
nings, Williams,  Kesley,  and  Reese  (John  S.)  of  the  ministers, 
and  Arthur  Emmerson,  Lambert  Thomas,  John  Chappell,  Wesley 
Starr,  Jesse  Comegys,  and  James  Hindes  of  the  laity. 

E-ev.  H.  B.  Bascom,  under  his  own  signature,  writes  to  the 
chairman  June  20,  1825,  a  striking  letter  eulogistic  of  Rev.  John 
Summerfield,  who  had  from  that  fell  disease  consumption  just 
closed  a  brilliant  career.  He  will  be  heard  from  frequently  in 
the  future  under  his  several  noms  de  plume,  Presbyter,  Dissenter, 
Neale,  and  with  pronounced  opinions  and  unflinching  adherence  as 
Vindex.  Next  to  the  English  Summerfield  he  was  the  bright  par- 
ticular star  of  early  Methodism  as  a  pulpit  orator.  Born  in  1796, 
in  New  York  State,  his  father,  under  stress  of  debt,  removed  with 
his  large  family  to  the  frontier  of  that  state,  thence  to  Kentucky, 
and  finally  to  Ohio.  Henry  entered  the  ministry  at  sixteen  years 
of  age,  a  precocious  giant  in  intellect  and  physique.  To  the  slur 
that  he  was  a  "  new  recruit "  in  Reform,  he  made  answer  April, 
1828,  "Vindex  was  one  among  reformers  who  drafted  a  memorial 
to  the  General  Conference  of  1816,  twelve  years  ago,  praying  for 
an  important  alteration  in  the  government  of  the  Church  —  and 
as  early  as  1822  published  his  thoughts  at  length  on  this  subject 
in  the  Wesleyan  Repository. "  ^  His  father  died  early,  leaving  a 
large  and  dependent  family  to  Henry,  the  eldest  son,  as  their 
only  support.  Not  economical  by  habit,  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ment haunted  him  through  life  and  delayed  his  marriage  until 
past  forty  years  of  age.  It  is  the  key  to  his  history  and  the 
extenuation  of  his  failure  openly  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  Reform 
to  the  last  extremity  of  self-abnegation. 

1  Jennings's  *'  Exposition  of  the  Late  Controversy."   8vo.   247  pp.  Harrod, 
publisher,  Baltimore,  1831.    For  citation,  see  p.  214. 
VOL.  II — G 


82 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


A  purpose  was  formed  by  the  friends  of  Keform  in  Bedford 
County,  Tenn.,  to  organize  a  Union  Society,  and  in  February, 
1825,  a  tentative  meeting  was  held,  and  a  call  made  for  such  an 
organization  in  May  ensuing,  which  subsequently  met  in  a  large 
barn  just  out  of  Unionville  in  Bedford  County.  The  Presiding 
Elder  of  the  district,  James  Gynne,  in  the  majesty  of  a  true 
hierarch,  resolved  to  estop  the  proceedings,  and  in  April  read  out 
from  the  Quarterly  conference  the  names  of  fourteen  official  mem- 
bers, some  of  whom  were  local  preachers,  with  the  announcement 
that  "  these  brethren  had  put  themselves  out  of  the  Church,  and 
were  no  longer  to  be  considered  Methodists."  Undeterred,  the 
Union  Society  was  formed  in  May,  William  B.  Elgin,  President, 
and  Richard  Warner,  Secretary.  It  was  composed  of  a  number 
of  the  leading  members  and  citizens  of  the  county.  They  issued 
a  circular  in  which  they  say :  "  There  is  a  work  in  circulation  [the 
Mutual  Rights],  published  in  Baltimore,  in  which  the  arguments 
on  both  sides  of  the  question  which  agitates  us  are  set  forth;  we 
would  recommend  our  brethren  to  procure  and  read  the  work; 
give  the  arguments  on  both  sides  due  weight,  and  if,  after  a 
patient  investigation,  we  should  still  differ,  we  do  not  see  why  we 
should  quarrel  with  or  anathematize  each  other.  .  .  .  We  again 
declare  (the  assertion  of  the  Presiding  Elder  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding) that  we  have  not  'left  the  Methodist  Church.' 
Neither  do  we  design  to  do  so  while  there  is  the  most  distant 
prospect  of  our  being  of  any  use  to  or  in  that  Church."  This 
independent  course  stung  the  Elder  to  the  quick,  and  at  once  sys- 
tematic expulsions  were  inaugurated,  some  nine  local  preachers 
being  of  the  number.  Appeals  were  taken  to  the  ensuing  Annual 
Conference,  which  met  in  October  (it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
name  of  the  presiding  Bishop  cannot  be  ascertained,  but  probably 
Roberts,  as  in  these  days  he  tried  to  hold  an  even  balance  with 
the  contestants),  and  after  a  fair  investigation  these  mountaineers 
decided  that  the  Elder  had  exceeded  his  authority  and  ordered 
the  restoration  of  the  expelled  members,  the  Bishop  of  course 
concurring.  The  zeal  of  the  Elder  had  eaten  him  up.  It  will 
be  seen  that  this  first  attempt  to  expel  Reform  out  of  the  Church 
was  an  abortion,  because  the  process  of  gestation  was  imperfect. 
The  brethren  in  Baltimore  addressed  the  persecuted  in  Tennessee 
a  letter  of  sympathy  and  support,  and  it  was  this  bond  of  union, 
with  the  steady  spread  of  Reform,  coupled  with  their  undeviating 
resolve  not  to  secede,  that  led  the  authorities  at  last  to  sanction 
expulsions.    In  February  following,  1826,  a  temptation  so  to  do 


UNION  SOCIETIES  FORMED  —  EXPULSIONS  83 


was  presented  by  a  circular  addressed  the  Eeformers  everywhere 
by  the  Stillwell  and  other  seceders  in  New  York  and  the  North, 
now  a  considerable  body,^  inviting  them  to  send  delegates  to  a 
Convention  to  be  called  in  the  city  of  New  York,  "  to  form  a  Con- 
stitution for  a  new  Methodist  Church."  A  special  messenger 
was  sent  to  the  Baltimore  Society,  and  they  made  official  answer, 
February  15,  1826,  in  which  they  restate  their  position :  "  In  the 
number  of  the  Mutual  Rights  for  August,  1825,  p.  2,  we  have 
made  the  declaration  to  the  world  that  we  have  no  design  to 
separate  from  the  Church,  much  less  to  divide  it;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  we  are  laboring  to  prevent  secessions  and  divisions, 
.  .  .  consequently  any  participation  in  the  measures  you  propose 
would  be  inconsistent  with  our  avowed  intentions."  Signed, 
John  Chappell,  President. 

1  The  secession  of  W.  M.  Stillwell  in  New  York  City  originally  carried  from 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  about  three  hundred  members  in  1820-21. 
Through  the  kindness  of  Rev.  J.  J.  Smith,  D.D.,  the  printed  minutes  of  those  who 
adhered  to  this  organization  for  the  years  1824, 1825, 1826,  and  1827  are  before  the 
writer  and  enable  him  to  give  a  fairly  correct  idea  of  the  growth  of  this  body. 
From  those  of  1824  it  is  ascertained  that  the  "  Yearly  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Society  "  consisted  of  twenty-eight  delegates  from  churches  in  New  York  City, 
three  in  number,  and  other  places  in  New  Jersey,  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati,  etc. 
The  total  membership  is  set  down  2139.  In  1825  they  had  churches  in  western 
New  York,  Connecticut,  etc.,  and  claimed  an  increase  of  386.  In  1826  it  appears 
that  William  M.  Stillwell  set  up  an  independent  Conference,  disowning  the  large 
majority,  so  true  is  it  that  "secession  breeds  an  exaggerated  individualism  and 
carries  with  it  the  possibility  and  menace  of  further  schisms."  The  regular  Con- 
ference held  its  session  notwithstanding  as  "  An  annual  State  Conference  "  in  the 
Sullivan  Street  church,  New  York,  Stillwell  having  given  notice  through  the  New 
York  Observer  that  it  would  not  be  allowed  to  meet  as  intended  in  his  Christie 
Street  church  in  New  York.  It  seems  that  he  favored  union  with  the  "  Radicals  " 
of  Maryland  and  elsewhere  whose  first  convention  assembled  in  November  of  this 
year.  The  regular  body  held  on  its  way,  and  it  was  to  it  that  the  Reformers  of 
Baltimore  declined  sending  delegates  on  their  solicitations  elsewhere  noticed.  In 
turn  they  disowned  Stillwell  and  his  church.  The  name  of  Lorenzo  Dow  is  found 
associated  with  this  movement  as  "  general  missionary,"  and  he  continued,  with 
them  in  his  eccentric  manner  until  his  death,  finding  sympathy  and  support  among 
Methodist  Protestants  in  Maryland  in  his  last  illness.  A  society  of  110  was 
claimed  in  Baltimore,  and  a  separate  conference,  called  the  Rochester,  in  west- 
ern New  York,  but  for  1827  the  statistics  are  not  furnished.  Nearly  this  whole 
organization  eventually  merged  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  fur- 
nished names  which  are  honored  in  its  after  history,  as  Aaron  G.  Brewer,  who  re- 
moved to  Georgia,  and  in  which  state  they  also  claimed  a  considerable  membership, 
Samuel  Budd  of  New  Jersey,  James  Covell,  and  Isaac  Fister.  This  organization 
must  not  be  confounded  with  the  Reform  Methodists,  also  elsewhere  referred  to, 
who  originated  in  secessions  in  1814,  and  spread  into  a  number  of  states  North 
and  West,  and  were  in  existence  as  late  as  1840 ;  but  these  also  found  a  more 
compact  organization  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  into  which  they  were 
absorbed  in  large  part. 


CHAPTER  V 


Roanoke  District  Conference,  North  Carolina,  and  its  Reformers  — Rev.  W.  W. 
Hill's  trial  and  acquittal;  the  Granville  Union  Society  and  expulsion  of 
Lewellyn  Jones ;  other  expulsions ;  Ira  Harris's  defence ;  J.  R.  Williams's 
masterly  summation  of  the  charges  against  these  Reformers  —  Persecution  of 
Reformers  in  Baltimore;  "Baltimore"  James  Smith  retires  as  a  Reformer; 
reasons  —  Effort  to  secure  unanimity  among  the  Reformers;  call  of  a  Conven- 
tion in  Baltimore  for  1826  to  this  end  — Analysis  of  Dr.  Bond's  character  and 
methods  as  an  anti-reformer ;  tricky  and  "  dotingly  fond  of  dispute  "  —  Chris- 
tian Advocate  first  issued  September,  182G;  a  battery  against  Reform  —  Shinn 
on  the  situation;  a  masterly  plea  — Bishops'  meeting  in  1827;  what  it  did  — 
General  Reform  Convention  in  Baltimore,  November,  1827;  what  it  did  — 
"Union  Societies"  and  AYesley's  "United  Societies"  kindred  —  Bascom  to 
the  front  as  a  Reformer;  vindication  of  him  as  such. 

The  Roanoke  District  Conference  of  Xorth  Carolina  took  a 
conspicuous  and  early  part  in  the  Reform  movement.  There  was 
great  dissatisfaction  throughout  the  South  over  the  action  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1820,  which  met  their  petition  for  gov- 
ernmental recognition  by  enacting  the  District  Conference  meas- 
ure, the  itinerants  thus  assuming  to  legislate  for  them,  as 
occupying  the  same  position  of  nonage  as  the  laity.  The  Roanoke 
brethren  were  as  courageous  as  they  were  gifted,  and  the  series 
of  protests  and  circulars  addressed  by  them  to  the  general  Church 
and  the  itinerants  are  among  the  ablest  issued  during  the  course 
of  the  controversy,  and  may  be  found  in  full  in  Paris's  '"History." 
They  memorialized  the  General  Conference  of  1824  in  a  calm, 
courteous,  and  dignified  address.  A  Union  Society  was  formed 
at  Sampson's  meeting-house  in  Halifax  Countj^,  Xovember  S, 
1824.  It  was  the  first  formed  after  that  of  Baltimore,  May  21, 
1824,  and  after  which  most  of  them  were  patterned.  It  was 
composed  of  eleven  persons.  Revs.  Messrs.  Price,  Smith,  Bel- 
lamy, Hunter,  Hines,  Whitaker,  and  Jones,  local  preachers ;  and 
"William  E.  Bellamy,  Morris,  King,  and  ^McLean,  laymen.  It 
soon  after  grew  to  thirty-nine.  In  April,  1825,  Rev.  W.  W. 
Hill  of  Matamuskeet  circuit,  a  former  Itinerant  in  good  standing, 
was  received.  He  was  zealous,  educated,  and  eloquent.  In  the 
following  month  of  August  he  was  summoned  to  appear  for  trial 

84 


NORTH  CAROLINA  REFORMERS — W.  W.  HILL  85 


under  the  rule  forbidding  "inveighing  against  the  discipline," 
etc.,  by  Rev.  Benjamin  Edge,  the  assistant  preacher  on  the  cir- 
cuit, on  "  next  Sunday,  August  7,  at  the  chapel  in  Matamuskeet, 
before  a  committee  of  local  preachers."  He  had  two  days'  notice 
and  was  twenty  miles  distant,  but  he  was  in  attendance.  The 
notice  gave  him  the  privilege,  "you  can  withdraw  under  Church 
censure,  if  you  see  proper,  if  you  do  it  in  a  formal  manner." 
The  trial  occurred,  and,  after  the  case  was  stated  by  the  prose- 
cutor. Hill  made  an  eloquent  and  masterful  defence,  which  Paris 
has  preserved  for  posterity  as  a  specimen  of  the  mental  calibre 
and  moral  stamina  of  the  Reformers.  It  concludes :  "And  now, 
my  brethren  of  the  committee,  bring  in  a  verdict  which  shall 
comport  with  the  interests  of  your  Church,  and  the  rights  of  your 
country,  and  I  shall  be  satisfied."  They  reported,  "No  cause  of 
action."  The  committee  were  honest  and  capable  men,  so  that 
Edge's  persecution  miscarried  in  its  purpose.  So  generally  were 
the  local  preachers  everywhere  enlisted  as  Reformers  that  in  not 
a  few  localities  it  was  impossible  for  the  Itinerants  to  select 
committees  of  trial,  "organized  to  convict."  In  July,  1826,  the 
Granville  Union  Society  was  organized  on  Tar  River  circuit, 
composed  of  the  best  material  of  the  Church.  A  few  days  there- 
after the  preacher  in  charge,  Benton  Field,  cited  Lewellyn  Jones, 
a  man  of  irreproachable  character,  and  three  others,  Macon,  Val- 
entine, and  Hunt,  for  their  failure  to  "yield  to  reproof  so  far  as 
to  engage  in  future  to  leave  off  such  pernicious  conduct,"  i.e. 
circulating  Reform  literature  and  belonging  to  the  Union  Society. 
They  were  brought  before  the  class  of  which  they  were  members, 
and  enough  were  found  who  agreed  with  the  preacher  in  charge, 
to  enable  him  to  infer  that  he  had  a  right  to  expel  them,  but 
when  it  came  before  the  church,  the  question  was  not  put, 
"guilty"  or  "not  guilty,"  this  might  have  failed  to  secure  even 
a  bare  majority  vote,  but  the  prosecutor  said,  "  All  of  you  who 
think  their  conduct  will  have  a  bad  effect,  will  signify  it  by 
rising  up."  A  majority  acquiesced  in  this  view  of  it,  though  it 
had  no  connection  with  the  charge  preferred.  To  indicate  how 
arbitrary  was  this  act,  four  days  after  a  local  preacher  of  the 
same  class  was  arraigned  before  a  committee  of  his  peers,  and 
though  strenuous  efforts  were  made  by  the  prosecutor  to  prevent 
any  Reformer  from  being  of  it,  he  was  acquitted  on  the  same 
testimony.  The  venerable  Lewellyn  Jones  appealed  to  the  Quar- 
terly Conference,  and  the  Presiding  Elder,  Rev.  William  Comp- 
ton,  in  summing  up  the  case  against  him  said  in  substance,  "  Men 


86 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


may  forfeit  cliurch  privileges  without  committing  an  immoral 
act,"  and  instanced  a  case  or  two  in  criminal  practice  in  which  men 
had  been  punished  for  thieves  and  rogues  who  had  not  actually 
stolen  anything ;  and  that  men  had  been  dealt  with  as  Tories  who 
had  not  loaded  their  guns  nor  pulled  a  trigger,  alleging  that  the 
keeping  of  company  with  rogues  and  Tories  was  sufficient  proof 
of  guilt.  Having  performed  this  task,  he  resumed  the  chair  and 
put  the  vote;  and  the  majority  confirmed  the  sentence  from 
which  Jones  had  appealed."^  Three  more  were  subsequently 
expelled,  and  the  seven  appealed  to  the  Annual  Conference. 
That  body  decided  that  "it  was  not  maladministration."  How 
true  Snethen's  words,  "Men  who  have  the  same  interests  will  be 
prone  to  act  alike." 

A  correspondence  of  singular  merit  —  a  polemical  bout  —  fol- 
lowed these  expulsions,  between  Rev.  Ira  Harris  of  the  Reformers 
and  Rev.  William  Compton,  Presiding  Elder,  which  has  also 
been  preserved  by  Paris  in  the  full  text.  It  turns  upon  the  issue 
made  by  Harris,  who  cited  from  the  Discipline  the  only  law 
bearing  upon  the  case :  "  If  the  accused  person  be  found  guilty,  by 
the  decision  of  a  majority  of  members  before  whom  he  is  brought 
to  trial,  and  the  crime  be  such  as  is  expressly  forbidden  by  the  word 
of  God,  sufficient  to  exclude  a  person  from  the  kingdom  of  grace  and 
glory,  let  the  minister  or  preacher  who  has  charge  of  the  circuit 
expel  him."  The  italicized  words  define  the  law  evidently,  and 
Compton  found  it  impossible  to  wrest  it  from  this  plain  meaning 
which  guarantees  membership  unless  immorality  is  involved; 
and  it  is  in  direct  contravention  of  the  rule  as  to  "  inveighing 
against  the  discipline,"  though  it  had  been  pressed  into  the  ser- 
vice from  O'Kelly's  day  to  1830,  as  well  as  other  forced  inter- 
pretations of  certain  sections  in  the  "General  Rules,"  notably 
that  which  names  "speaking  evil  of  ministers,"  though  it  was 
incontrovertibly  established  that  this  reference  by  Wesley  was 
to  the  English  revolutionists  and  referred  exclusively  to  the 
"  ministers  "  of  the  British  Crown  in  their  civil  capacity,  and  is 
so  interpreted  by  Coke  and  Asbury  in  the  Notes  on  the  Discipline 
of  1796.  So  desperate  were  the  straits  in  which  the  prosecutors 
found  themselves  when  the  Episcopacy  finally  sanctioned  expul- 
sion as  the  only  method  left  to  extirpate  a  movement  which  it 
was  found  logically  impossible  to  meet.  The  general  case  is  thus 
enlarged  here  because  it  will  answer  for  all  others  which  followed, 
though  the  literature  of  the  subject  on  both  sides  affirmed  and 
1  Paris's  "  History,"  p.  99. 


CASE  OF  REFORMERS  IN  A  NUT- SHELL 


87 


denied  through  all  the  kaleidoscopic  aspects  of  merely  dialectical 
fence  and  parry.  Once  for  all  the  cases  have  been  summarized 
by  James  R.  Williams  as  follows:  "1st.  Those  brethren  were 
excommunicated  for  no  act  of  immorality ;  for  the  neglect  of  no 
Christian  duty;  nor  for  the  dissemination  of  false  doctrines. 
2d.  They  were  not  expelled  for  the  violation  of  any  rule  of  disci- 
pline; for  though  charged  with  inveighing  against  the  discipline, 
the  charge  was  not  sustained.  3d.  They  were  expelled  for  becom- 
ing members  of  a  Union  Society,  the  avowed  design  of  which, 
according  to  its  constitution,  was  'for  the  purpose  of  correspond- 
ing with  the  brethren  within  the  United  States,  who  are  favor- 
able to  Reform,  on  such  subjects  as  will  tend  to  improve  the 
form  of  our  church  government.'  4th.  They  were  expelled  for 
joining  said  Union  Society,  not  because  this  act  was  a  violation 
of  any  law,  divine  or  human,  but  because  in  the  opinion  of  the 
preacher  and  a  majority  of  those  present  at  the  trial,  'their  being 
members  of  the  Union  Society  would  have  a  bad  effect.^  5th.  Not- 
withstanding the  obvious  injustice  of  this  act,  and  the  tyrannical 
conduct  of  the  preacher  in  charge,  yet  the  Virginia  Annual  Con- 
ference, with  three  bishops  present,  declared  that  the  act  of 
expulsion  'was  not  maladministration.'  "  ^  A  travelling  preacher 
afterward  characterized  it  as  "  worse  than  passing  an  ex  post  facto 
law,  which,  according  to  the  American  Constitution,  is  destruc- 
tive of  civil  liberty,  and  inconsistent  with  good  government." 

The  news  of  these  transactions  spread  far  and  wide,  and  on  the 
Reformers  and  their  opponents,  in  Baltimore  especially,  the  effect 
was  to  foment  bitter  discussion,  crimination,  and  recrimination, 
the  bandying  of  epithets  such  as  only  an  ecclesiastical  contro- 
versy can  engender,  social  church  ties  were  sundered,  families 
were  divided  in  sentiment,  the  opponents  of  Reform  exulted  over 
the  expulsions  and  warned  their  Reforming  friends  what  they 
might  expect  in  the  near  future;  and  the  Reformers,  burning 
with  indignation,  did  not  mince  their  words  in  condemnation. 
Amid  it  all,  though  scarcely  credible,  revivals  took  place,  both 
parties  meeting  at  the  church  altars  and  working  together  to  this 
end.  But  this  fell6wship  was  not  allowed  to  continue.  Petty 
persecutions  began  of  the  Reformers  by  declining  to  renew  their 
licenses  to  exhort  or  to  preach,  and  dropping  them  from  their 
official  positions.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  locality  annually  to 
arrange  a  Plan  of  Appointments  ^  for  the  city  and  suburbs  under 

1  "History,"  pp.  133,  134. 

2  One  of  these  printed  Plans  is  now  before  the  writer. 


88 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  direction  of  the  Itinerants.  The  Reformers  found  their  names 
excluded  from  this  Plan,  though  such  notable  preachers  as  Jen- 
nings, John  S.  Reese,  Daniel  E.  Reese,  Sr.,  McCaine,  Williams, 
and  others,  were  of  their  number.  But  more  than  all  these  causes 
of  distraction  the  Reformers  had  not  concentrated,  as  urged  by 
Stockton,  Snethen,  and  Shinn,  upon  the  one  issue  of  lay-repre- 
sentation; the  local  preachers,  both  of  the  retired  ministers,  like 
McCaine,  and  the  locality  preachers,  like  Jennings,  were  unwill- 
ing to  sink  their  parity  claim  to  participation  in  the  government. 

October,  1825,  an  event  occurred  which  gave  the  cause  of 
Reform  a  set-back.  A  few  months  before  a  young  preacher  of 
the  Baltimore  Conference  addressed  a  note  to  James  (Baltimore) 
Smith,  craving  him  to  define  the  position  of  the  controvertists 
and  his  own.  He  was  stationed  in  Annapolis  at  the  time  and 
replied,  the  correspondence  appearing  in  the  Mutual  Rights  of 
October.  In  this  letter  he  defined  his  own  and  the  Reformers' 
position  clearly  without  yielding  the  slightest  point,  but  indicated 
his  doubt  of  the  practicability  of  the  measure  in  the  present 
temper  of  the  contestants,  as  his  opinion  was  that  it  could  be 
accomplished  only  through  a  convention  of  the  Church.  He 
disclaimed  having  "changed  sides,"  but  deplored  the  lack  of 
unanimity  in  the  aims  of  the  Reformers,  and  the  ill  feeling 
engendered.  He  asks,  therefore,  the  privilege  of  retiring  from 
this  "controversial  field  in  quietude,"  without  aspersion  of  his 
motives  by  any  one;  adding,  "I  do  not  foreclose  myself  from 
any  future  efforts,  if  my  convictions  should  lead  me  to  make 
them,"  etc.  McCaine  reviewed  his  letter  with  some  sharpness, 
and  Shinn  criticised  a  single  statement  of  it  with  his  usual  mild- 
ness of  diction,  but  force  of  argument.  A  short  period,  however, 
developed  a  fact  which,  perhaps,  does  more  than  anything  else  to 
explain  his  retirement.  The  Minutes  show  that  he  superannuated 
the  following  spring,  removed  to  Baltimore,  where  he  died  the 
same  year,  1826,  or  about  a  year  after  this  correspondence,  and 
in  the  forty -third  or  fourth  year  of  his  age.  Evidently  ill  health 
warned  him  to  leave  the  fray.  The  Conference  obituary  is  brief 
and  gives  no  particulars  of  his  illness,  noting,  however,  his  con- 
nection with  Reform,  "  He  commanded  respect  even  from  those 
who  differed  from  him  in  some  points  of  church  polity."  He 
died  "in  great  peace  of  mind,  after  evincing  a  striking  example 
of  patience  and  fortitude  in  his  last  sufferings." 

The  second  volume  of  the  Mutual  Rights  closed  with  a  subscrip- 
tion doubled  in  number,  and  its  finances  in  good  shape.    "  Frank- 


REFORMERS  WERE  NOT     RADICALS  "  89 


lin,"  Rev.  W.  W.  Hill,  appeared  as  a  contributor  from  North 
Carolina.  Shinn  and  Snethen,  with  McCaine,  occupied  large 
space.  Shinn,  in  one  of  his  articles,  made  the  sensible  but 
"radical"  suggestion,  "except,  therefore,  the  reformers  can  be 
successful  in  ultimately  obtaining  a  constitution,  they  might  as 
well  give  the  matter  up;  for  no  reformation  short  of  this  is  worth 
contending  for;  because  none  short  of  this  would  secure  any  per- 
manent advantage  to  the  Church."  His  acute  and  logical  mind 
saw  plainly  that  the  enactments  of  1784  and  1808  were  in  no 
proper  sense  a  "constitution,"  so  that  any  future  General  Con- 
ference, sovereignty  residing  perpetually  in  it,  could  undo  any 
concessions  that  might  be  made  if  unguaranteed  by  conventional 
sanction.  In  this  view  most  of  the  Reformers  acquiesced,  so 
that  their  memorials  only  hoped  for  favorable  General  Confer- 
ence action  looking  to  such  measures  as  would  make  changes 
permanent.  While  they  were  radical  in  their  examination  of 
the  foundations,  they  were  not  radical  in  haste,  as  all  the  facts 
testify.  Indeed,  it  was  this  conservative  ground  that  tested  the 
patience  of  the  Episcopal  "radicals"  more  than  anything  else, 
foregone  in  their  conclusions  that  the  "institutions  of  the 
Church,  as  they  received  them  from  the  fathers,"  should  never 
be  innovated,  they  ardently  wished  one  of  two  things :  that  the 
Reformers  would  precipitate  action,  or  take  some  ground  that 
would  justify  their  expulsion  before  the  world  and  other  churches. 
They  gratified  them  in  neither.  The  much  regretted  withdrawal 
of  Smith,  and  the  insidious  declension  of  some  others,  presently 
to  be  uncovered,  led  the  Episcopal  party  to  spread  the  rumor  that 
many  were  abandoning  Reform;  so  that  it  called  for  an  official 
denial  with  the  necessary  exceptions. 

One  effect  of  it  was  to  admonish  the  local  preachers,  whose 
uncompromising  demands  had  done  the  cause  so  much  damage  as 
almost  to  extinguish  it  in  Philadelphia  and  Wilmington,  that 
they  must  surcease.^    Accordingly,  the  Baltimore  Union  Society 

1  Despite  these  evil  results  their  cause  seemed  so  just  not  only  intrinsically, 
but  they  had  before  them  the  example  of  the  Allenites  (colored)  Zioii  Church, 
which  organized  years  before  as  a  secession  from  the  mother  church,  giving  the 
local  preachers  an  equal  recognition  in  the  General  Conference,  and  of  the  United 
Brethren  (Otterbein-Boehm  Church)  which,  at  its  convention  of  1815,  in  Ohio, 
framed  a  Discipline  of  which  the  following  features  are  noticed :  "  They  recog- 
nize the  fundamental  principle  of  liberty,  the  right  of  suffrage;  for  the  people 
elect  their  representatives  to  the  General  Conference.  They  give  to  the  local 
ministry  a  seat  in  the  Annual  Conference,  and  make  them  alike  eligible  with  the 
travelling  preachers  to  a  seat  in  the  General  Conference.  And  by  doing  away 
every  ordination  except  one,  they  remove  all  occasion  of  pride  from  among  the 


90 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


in  January,  1826,  passed  a  series  of  resolutions,  the  locality 
cooperating,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  "consider  the  pro^jriety 
of  calling  a  convention  of  the  friends  of  Reform,"  "for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  unanimity  of  sentiment  and  harmony  of  expres- 
sion in  the  memorials  to  be  sent  up  to  the  ensuing  General 
Conference  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  in  1828."  It  was  approved,  and 
the  committee  "  recommended  conventions  to  be  assembled  in  the 
several  states  of  the  Uniou,  where  brethren  are  inclined  to  adopt 
the  measure,  for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  making  inquiry  into 
the  propriety  and  expediency  of  asking  for  a  representation, 
and  taking  measures  preparatory  to  the  formation  of  a  memo- 
rial expressly  upon  that  subject."  Baltimore  was  suggested  as 
a  suitable  place  for  the  General  Convention.^  The  Eeport 
was  printed  and  circulated  through  the  United  States  so  far 
as  Reformers  could  make  it  reach.  This  alignment  of  Eeform 
forces  was  a  serious  menace  to  the  Episcopal  party.  It  meant 
sensible  business,  and  was  hailed  by  the  Reformers  as  a  means  of 
composing  their  differences  of  opinion.  It  infused  new  life  into 
the  movement,  and  prompted  the  organization  of  a  number  of 
Union  Societies.  Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati,  and  other  points 
became  additional  centres  of  agitation,  now  that  the  objective  of 
the  leading  minds,  Snethen,  Shinn,  Stockton,  Davis,  and  others, 
lay-representation  alone  as  the  issue,  leaving  all  other  questions 
for  future  adjustment,  had  been  attained.  The  controversy  grew 
more  heated  everywhere  as  extreme  measures  of  repression  were 
resorted  to  by  the  Bourbon  conservatives,  and  equally  extreme 
positions  were  taken  by  the  more  intemperate  Reformers.  It 
was  an  inevitable  concomitant  of  such  a  party  spirit. 

Reform  in  Baltimore  unhappily  developed  under  three  phases : 
the  local  preacher  section,  who  were  also  lay-representationists; 
the  lay-representationists,  who  felt  this  to  be  the  sheet-anchor 
and  other  questions  subsidiary;  and  the  two  sections  based  their 
claim  upon  the  right  of  it,  which  was  the  view  of  all  the  leading 
Reformers.  A  third,  and  smaller,  section  asked  for  concessions 
to  both  the  locality  and  the  laity,  but  based  it  entirely  upon  its 
expediency.    It  claimed  to  be  represented  by  a  "  large  meeting  " 

ministry  on  the  score  of  office."*  They  lacked  only  lay-representation  to  make 
the  discipline  a  model  one  for  the  Reformers  in  Methodism,  a  feature  which  in 
after  years  was  also  introduced. 

1  It  did  not  materialize  as  a  "  General  Convention,"  but  one  was  held  for  the 
state  of  Maryland  and  the  District  of  Columbia  in  November  of  this  year. 

*  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  II.  p.  39. 


ANTI-REFOEMEB,  DR.  BOND,  DISSECTED  91 


of  the  members  of  the  Church,  as  already  disclosed  —  the  meeting 
of  which  Thomas  Kelso  was  Chairman  and  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond 
Secretary,  early  in  1824.  The  expediency  view  was  looked  upon 
by  Jennings  and  others  as  a  practical  surrender  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion. He  avers  that  at  this  meeting  Dr.  Bond,  who  was  a  local 
preacher,  insisted  upon  being  admitted  as  a  layman,  that  he 
might  be  on  the  committee  to  prepare  the  memorial,  and  was  so 
recognized,  because  not  ordained;  and  he  was  probably  the  author 
of  it.  It  took  the  ground  of  expediency,  and  Jennings  says,  "  In 
the  instant  when  that  part  of  the  Keport  was  read,  which  con- 
tained this  fatal  proposition,  we  considered  it  a  known  surrender 
of  the  cause  of  reform ;  and  we  have  continued  to  view  it  in  the 
same  light  until  now.^  Prior  to  this  time,  Dr.  Bond  was  an 
active  patron  of  the  Wesleyan  Repository,  probably  one  of  the 
writers  for  that  work.  Since  then  we  have  not  known  any  act  of 
his  which  favored  our  cause." 

It  is  the  cue  to  Dr.  Bond's  after  career  as  a  violent  anti- 
reformer.  He  stood  as  its  protagonist  until  the  day  of  his  death. 
An  analysis  of  this  remarkable  man  is  demanded,  for  the  reason 
that  he  was  criticised  and  denounced  without  stint  of  language 
by  the  Reformers,  and  lauded  and  coddled  by  the  Episcopal  party 
in  equally  extreme  eulogy.  And  for  this  reason  the  writer  will 
fortify  a  judgment  of  his  own,  by  presenting  Dr.  Bond  as  his  own 
witness,  contemporaries  of  his  own  Church,  and  their  united  testi- 
mony as  supported  by  Reformers  who  knew  him  well,  and  the 
facts  of  his  anti-reform  history.  Others  may  thus  be  made  the 
judges  of  his  motives,  and  shall  furnish  an  explanation  of  his 
otherwise  exceptional  conduct  toward  his  former  friends  and 
coadjutors  in  the  Church.  First,  Dr.  Bond  vs.  Dr.  Bond.  In  an 
article  in  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  while  he  was  editor, 
in  1854,  on  "  The  Sanctity  of  Ministerial  Character, "  and  after- 
ward rebuked  in  the  Zion^s  Herald,  he  declared :  "  We  have  never 
assailed  the  personal  reputation  of  any  one  because  they  differed 

1  Rev.  H.  B.  Bascom,  in  his  "  Summary  Declaration  of  Rights,"  in  the  eleventh 
article  says:  "Expediei^cy  and  right  are  different  things.  Nothing  is  expedient 
that  is  unjust.  Necessity  and  convenience  may  render  a  form  of  government 
useful  and  effective  for  a  time,  which  afterward,  under  a  change  of  circumstances 
and  an  accumulation  of  responsibility,  may  become  oppressive  and  intolerable. 
That  system  of  things  which  cannot  be  justified  by  the  Word  of  God  and  the  com- 
mon sense  of  mankind  can  never  be  expedient."  Controversion  of  this  position 
is  impossible  with  success,  and  therefore  the  ground  of  Jennings  and  the  Reform- 
ers on  this  question.  Expediency,  as  applied  to  Methodist  Reform,  is  Right, 
cringing  and  fawning  before  Power  —  Right,  crawling  like  a  reptile  on  its  belly. 

2  Introduction  to  Jennings's  "  Exposition,"  p.  8. 


92 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


with  us  in  opinion;  but  when  the  ministers  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  turn  reformers  after  their  fashion,  and  denounce 
and  defame  our  institutions  and  propose  wild  and  impracticable 
innovations  on  her  economy,  we  consider  it  a  right  and  a  duty  to 
show  that  they  are  not  entitled  to  the  confidence  of  the  Church, 
as  we  would  in  a  court  of  justice  claim  the  right  to  invalidate  the 
testimony  of  a  witness  by  showing  that  his  personal  character 
and  reputation  did  not  entitle  him  to  credence/'  Kev.  Dr. 
Wise,  in  the  Herald,  reproducing  this  remarkable  deliverance, 
says :  "  There  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  the  meaning  of  such  lan- 
guage. It  is  not  a  claim  to  put  down  wrong  opinions  by  hard 
argument,  —  that  would  be  right  and  just,  —  but  it  is  the  distinct 
claim  of  a  right  to  treat  ministerial  character  and  reputation  in  a 
manner  which  we  have  shown  to  be  forbidden  by  the  Bible  and 
by  the  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church."^  It  will 
be  seen  that  he  held  the  same  right  to  defame  a  man's  character, 
or  reputation,  in  1825-30,  if  his  controversial  end  could  thereby 
be  secured.  A  former  allusion  to  Dr.  Bond  gives  a  characteristic 
of  him  called  by  his  friends  sagacity,  and  by  his  opponents 
trickery.  Rev.  Dr.  Augustus  Webster,  editor  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant,  July  13,  1844,  cites  the  Richmond  Christian  Advocate, 
edited  by  Dr.  L.  M.  Lee,  of  June,  1844,  who  elaborates  this 
phase  of  his  character  as  follows :  "  This  ambiguous,  equivocal, 
and  jesuitical  preamble  and  resolution,  capable  of  being  explained 
either  way,  as  policy  might  dictate,  was  concocted  for  the  pur- 
pose of  'being  all  things  to  all  men,'  and  to  catch  the  votes  of  all 
the  factions  in  the  Conference  who  would  coalesce  in  any  action 
against  the  Bishop."  This  refers  to  Bond's  "substitute"  for  the 
resolution  "requiring  Bishop  Andrew  to  resign."  Dr.  Webster 
then  cites  from  the  New  York  Advocate,  edited  by  Bond,  for 
August  23,  1843,  this  admission  from  him,  "Heretofore  it  has 
been  a  matter  of  rejoicing  that  those  who  left  us,  and  set  up  for 
themselves  [reference  to  the  Reformers  of  1827-30],  have  only 
differed  with  us  in  opinion  as  to  the  form  of  church  government." 
On  which  Webster  comments,  "  When  it  is  remembered  that  the 
Senior  Editor  has  avowed  himself  the  contriver  of  the  mock  trials 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  this  judgment  is  indorsed  by  Dr.  Buckley  in  an  edito- 
rial, Christian  Advocate,  September  10,  187<),  in  these  words:  "  If  Dr.  Bond  came 
to  believe  a  man  to  be  upon  the  whole  inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  make  it  known,  and  brought  his 
unequalled  wealth  of  sarcastic  appellations  and  similes  into  use  to  restrain  the 
influence  of  his  opponent."  This  note  is  added  in  a  revision  of  this  work,  Decem- 
ber 23,  1896. 


WITNESSES  AND  DR.  BOND 


98 


and  bitter  persecutions  of  the  Reformers,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  Episcopal  Methodists,  who  have  at  last  found  out  his  sophistry 
and  cunning,  will  do  justice  to  the  memory  of  the  men  whom  he 
succeeded  but  too  far  in  misrepresenting." 

The  Southern  Advocates  in  1844-45,  ringing  the  changes  on 
this  exhibition  of  himself  in  the  General  Conference  of  1844, 
unwittingly  testify  that  the  methods  of  trickery  were  identical 
with  those  he  used  against  the  Reformers  in  1825-30.  So  much 
for  his  own  witness  and  that  of  his  contemporaries  of  the  same 
Church.  The  character-reading  Snethen,  long  years  before  these 
witnesses  could  be  thus  summoned,  said  of  him,  when,  early  in 
1827,  it  was  bruited  about  by  the  anti-reformers  that  Dr.  Bond 
was  about  to  issue  his  "Appeal  to  the  Methodists,"  as  a  foretoken 
of  his  menace  to  "  write  down  Reform  " :  "  If  his  book  cannot  be 
answered,  I  will  be  among  the  first  to  proclaim  him  victor;  if  it 
can  be,  he  must  prepare  to  pay  up  all  old  arrears  due  to  the  cause 
of  reform.  The  cause  is  great  and  the  stake  is  great.  This 
brother  at  arms  has  the  advantage  of  'sun  and  wind.'  The 
ground  has  been  familiar  to  him  from  the  beginning.  He  has 
been  in  our  citadel  and  is  acquainted  with  our  camp.  If  he 
means  to  spring  a  mine,  his  leisure  and  security  in  preparing  it 
have  been  ample.  The  choice  of  his  weapons  and  of  the  time, 
the  place,  and  manner  of  attack  are  all  his  own."  After  the 
pamphlet  appeared,  Snethen  said :  "  I  say  now  what  I  meant  last 
March.  The  reformers  did  once  think  doctor  Bond  as  worthy 
of  their  confidence;  and  in  writing  against  us,  if  he  knew  of  any 
secret  design  among  us,  we  expected  that  he  would  publish  them 
all."  Once  more:  "I  now  not  only  advise  the  friends  of  reform 
not  to  separate  from  the  Church,  but  I  warn,  and  caution,  and 
entreat  Dr.  Bond,  and  all  who  are  baptized  into  his  spirit,  not  to 
turn  men  out  of  the  Church  because  they  mean  to  petition  the 
General  Conference  to  grant  them  a  representation,  for  this  may 
lead  to  final  separation."  "For  upward  of  thirty  years  I  have 
been  familiar  with  all  doctor  Bond's  axioms  and  arguments  as 
with  my  alphabet.  I  am  surprised  when  I  hear  of  travelling 
preachers  of  some  standing  professing  to  be  convinced  by  this 
Appeal."  And,  finally:  "As  a  writer  against  the  principles  of 
reform,  doctor  Bond  is  not  to  be  feared ;  but  as  a  writer  against 
reformers  he  is  to  be  dreaded;  upon  principles  he  soon  gets  out 
of  his  depth,  but  upon  men  he  is  quite  at  home."  Dr.  Buckley, 
in  JSIeio  York  Christian  Advocate,  as  late  as  1894,  sketching  his 
career,  justly  says,  as  a  summation  of  his  calibre,  "He  was  a 


94 


EISTOBY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


master  of  an  English  style,  a  dialectician,  a  reasoner,  and,  when 
his  feelings  were  not  too  much  excited,  a  philosopher."  Unhap- 
pily, when  he  locked  horns  in  controversy,  he  was  always  warmly 
excited.  His  habitual  mental  temper,  Wesley,  in  his  "Xotes," 
aptly  describes  as  "dotingly  fond  of  dispute."  On  his  death- 
bed, reviewing  the  past,  he  said,  in  substance,  that  in  all  his 
efforts  his  motive  was  the  good  of  the  Church.  Xo  one  need 
doubt  it;  but  in  the  heat  of  those  efforts  against  Keform  and 
Keformers,  and  against  the  Southern  wing  of  the  General  Con- 
ference of  1844,  he  was  the  unsparing  traducer  of  other  men's 
motives.  This  extended  analysis  will  save  space  in  the  end, 
as  Dr.  Bond  shall  frequently  appear  upon  the  controversial 
scene. 

The  call  of  a  Convention  of  representatives  of  all  the  Union 
Societies  to  unify  the  memorials  to  the  ensuing  General  Con- 
ference, the  greatly  increased  circulation  of  the  Mutual  Rights^ 
and  the  spread  of  Eeform  principles,  probably  suggested  to  the 
Episcopal  authorities  that  the  policy  of  silence,  lest  the  move- 
ment should  be  helped  by  advertising  its  existence,  would  no 
longer  answer;  the  press  must  be  employed  against  it.  In 
September,  1826,  the  Book  Concern,  with  Bangs  and  Emory  as 
agents,  issued  as  a  weekly  periodical  the  Christian  Advocate. 
Thenceforward  it  actively  antagonized  the  innovators.  Its 
weekly  issue  gave  it  a  great  advantage  over  the  monthly  appear- 
ance of  the  Mutual  Rights.  It  is  opportune  now  to  observe  that 
the  reply  of  the  General  Conference  of  1824  to  the  Reform  peti- 
tions was  directed  against  those  who  claimed  "  rights  and  privi- 
leges " ;  those  who  petitioned  as  believers  in  expediency  are 
unnoticed.  Through  the  year  1825  the  Baltimore  Reformers  be- 
came conscious  of  a  defection  to  their  cause;  it  was  evident  that 
some  parties  supposed  to  be  of  them  were  sapping  and  mining 
in  the  dark,  but  it  seemed  impossible  to  fix  the  responsibility, 
though  the  suspects  were  marked  and  watched.  The  Mutual 
Rights  for  1826  was  opened  by  a  forceful  review  of  the  situation 
by  "Bartimeus,"  who  in  a  postscript  now  gives  his  proper  name 
under  date,  "Pittsburgh,  June  26,  1826,  Asa  Shinn,"  alleging 
his  authorship  of  all  under  the  pseudonym,  with  the  motive  con- 
fessed "that  those  who  are  disposed  to  punish  may  be  at  no  loss 
to  know  where  to  strike,  as  well  as  to  comply  with  the  request 
of  friends."  It  was  an  exhibition,  not  of  Spartan,  but  of  Chris- 
tian courage.  He  felt  that  it  would  result  in  the  loss  of  the 
friendship  of  many  old  associates,  but  longer  concealment  "  would 


ASA  SHINN'S  MASTERFUL  SUMMATION  95 


be  in  effect  to  demand  surrender  of  his  understanding,  his  con- 
science, and  his  Bible.  He  is  entirely  persuaded  that  he  could 
not  pay  such  a  price  for  human  friendship,  without  losing  the 
friendship  of  God;  and  that  the  confidence  which  cannot  be  re- 
tained but  by  such  a  sacrifice,  is  really  not  worth  retaining." 
He  sums  up  the  situation  for  all  his  brethren:  "We  did  expect 
that  the  preachers  and  people  in  general  would  give  us  a  fair 
hearing;  this  expectation  is  at  an  end.  We  did  expect  that  our 
brethren  in  the  ministry  would  either  yield  to  our  arguments  or 
calmly  try  to  show  us  that  they  are  inconclusive;  this  expectation 
is  at  an  end.  We  did  expect  they  would  feel  their  obligation  to 
act  as  fairly  and  conscientiously  in  their  church  capacity  as  in 
their  individual  capacity;  this  is  also  at  an  end.  Therefore  we 
do  expect  punishmentj  in  some  form  or  other  .  .  .  every  man 
among  us  may  prepare  himself  either  to  give  up  the  cause  of 
reform,  or  to  suffer  in  one  form  or  other.  Those  who  consider  it 
not  worth  suffering  for,  will  of  course  give  it  up ;  but  those  who 
understand  its  value  and  importance  will  hold  to  truth  and  con- 
science at  every  hazard.  .  .  .  We  are  constrained  reluctantly  to 
expect  that  there  will  be  a  division.  Is  it  possible  for  this  to  be 
prevented?  If  impossible,  it  is  irrational  to  use  efforts  to  pre- 
vent it;  because  we  have  no  control  over  necessity.  But  if  it  be 
possible,  how  is  it  to  be  done?  Why,  it  is  possible  for  men  to  give 
up  the  truth;  but  would  this  be  right?  It  is  possible  for  men  to 
give  up  their  reason  and  their  Bible;  would  this  be  right?  It  is 
possible  for  men  to  give  up  their  duty,  their  liberty,  and  their 
standing  as  accountable  agents  in  God's  creation;  would  this  be 
right?  If  not,  in  what  conceivable  way  can  a  division  be  pre- 
vented, but  for  men  to  give  evidence  a  fair  hearing,  and  give  up 
their  bigotry  and  their  delusions?  If  men  will  not  do  it,  this 
corrupt  and  obstinate  will  is  the  only  thing  that  makes  a  united 
reformation  impossible,  and  He  who  requireth  truth  in  the  inward 
parts  will  judge  who  and  what  is  the  responsible  cause  of  the 
melancholy  schism."  The  facts  will  presently  show  that  never 
was  human  vaticination  more  literally  fulfilled.  Shinn,  next  to 
Snethen,  was  the  seer,  sage,  and  philosopher  of  Eeform.  Their 
strongest  opponents,  like  Dr.  Bond,  while  freely  lampooning  and 
traducing  Snethen  and  others,  let  this  pure  and  masterful  spirit 
severely  alone.  Nay,  he  wrung  from  Dr.  Bond  in  1844,  when  he 
was  busy  stigmatizing  and  scandalizing  the  Southern  brethren, 
this  handsome  tribute,  "  Here  is  a  man  incapable  of  guile  or  a 
sinister  purpose.    A  sterling  and  uncompromising  integrity  is 


96 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  prominent  ingredient  in  his  character."  ^  True,  he  used  Shinn 
in  this  as  a  foil  to  his  attacks  upon  others,  and  as  a  personal 
tribute  it  is  equalled  only  by  another  from  his  pen  covering  all 
the  leading  Reformers :  "  They  were  men  whose  very  errors  chal- 
lenged the  admiration  of  the  world."  ^  Unfortunately  for  the 
intrinsic  value  of  such  eulogies,  he  was  the  most  inconsistent  of 
men ;  for  the  same  pen  wrote  in  June,  1855,  during  his  last  edi- 
torial term  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  "They  [the 
Reformers]  were  expelled,  and  the  act  was  a  high  and  holy  vin- 
dication of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church;  "  but  it  was  in  criti- 
cism of  liberal  views  of  them  as  expressed  by  Abel  Stevens  at 
the  time. 

In  the  spring  of  1826  there  was  a  "bishops'  meeting,"  as 
ordered  by  the  General  Conference,  in  Baltimore,  the  ostensible 
business  of  which  was  to  appoint  a  fraternal  delegate  to  the 
Wesleyan  Conference.  It  adjourned  to  Philadelphia  so  as  to 
secure  the  attendance  of  Bishop  George,  whose  relations  with 
Bishop  ^I'Kendree  were  now  and  for  some  years  so  strained  that 
they  did  not  voluntarily  meet  each  other.  Another  was  held, 
with  all  present,  early  in  1827,  but  as  already  found  they  utterly 
disagreed  on  the  delegate  question,  a  majority  being  for  William 
Capers  of  the  South  and  a  minority  for  Wilbur  Fisk  of  the  North. 
Of  course  a  division  of  the  Episcopal  work  as  set  by  the  General 
Conference  of  1824  was  a  part  of  their  proceedings,  and  as  these 
meetings  quadrated  with  the  severe  measures  instituted  against 
the  Reformers,  it  was  their  firm  persuasion  that,  while  perhaps 
not  officially  passed  upon  as  a  minute  record,  it  was  understood 
that  "  expulsion  of  Reform  out  of  the  Church  "  should  be  recog- 
nized in  the  Eldership  as  a  last  resort  — "  power  shrinks  from 
the  test  of  logic."  It  has  passed  into  a  maxim  that  force  is  the 
last  argument  of  kings.  It  is  seen  to  be  the  last  argument  of 
bishops  also.  This  mention  is  called  for  inasmuch  as  it  will  be 
shortly  seen  that  any  direct  sanction  of  the  bishops  was  stoutly 
denied  by  the  strategic  Bond  and  others.  It  was  held  tliat  the 
action  against  the  Reformers  was  a  laymen's  action  to  "defecate  " 
the  Church  —  this  and  nothing  more. 

"One  of  the  Laity,"  John  F.  Watson  of  Philadelphia,  was 
allowed  space,  as  he  argued  the  question  and  kept  within  decorous 
bounds  as  to  personalities  against  the  Reformers,  through  the 
third  volume  of  the  Mutual  Bights.  He  wrote  with  ability. 
Again  wonder  can  but  be  expressed  that  the  Reform  periodical 

^  Xew  York  Christian  Advocate.  ^  Ibid. 


''MUTUAL  EIGHTS''  OPEN  TO  ANTI-BEFORMERS  97 


should  thus  occupy  its  pages.  Two  things,  however,  were  in 
view :  a  demonstration  that  it  was  a  free  press,  and  the  recrea- 
tion it  gave  Snethen,  Shinn,  Jennings,  Gideon  Davis,  McCaine, 
W.  W.  Hill,  and  others.  They  thus  drew  the  fire  of  their  oppo- 
nents, and  then  turned  in  and  spiked  their  guns.  The  product, 
on  either  side,  was  volumes  of  able  controversial  literature.  It 
is  all  accessible  to  the  candid  reader,  and  nothing  would  be  more 
in  harmony  with  the  confidence  of  the  writer  than  to  have  his 
statements  of  fact  or  conclusion  challenged  by  an  appeal  to  the 
records.  A  letter  from  Alabama,  May  19,  1826,  in  the  periodical 
says :  "  I  was  personally  acquainted  with  Bishop  Asbury.  I  have 
heard  him  converse  with  the  Kev.  Hope  Hull,  who  was  a  friend 
to  reform."  The  writer  says  he  has  a  son  and  a  son-in-law  in 
the  Mississippi  Conference.  He  sends  cheer  in  money  and  new 
subscribers,  and  adds,  "My  name  is  Joseph  Walker;  my  place 
of  residence  is  Dallas  County,  State  of  Alabama."  He  was  a 
type  of  the  laymen  who  were  not  to  be  intimidated  by  threats 
nor  cajoled  by  flattery. 

The  third  volume  contains  the  full  proceedings  of  the  Mary- 
land and  District  of  Columbia  Convention  of  Reformers  pre- 
liminary to  the  General  Convention.  It  was  held  on  the  15th 
and  16th  of  November,  1826,  in  what  was  then  the  English 
Lutheran  church,  on  Lexington  Street,  west  of  Paca,^  the  use  of 
the  city  Methodist  Episcopal  churches  having  been  denied  them 
by  the  trustees,  though  they  were  all  members  in  good  standing. 
Nicholas  Snethen  was  called  to  the  chair  and  Gideon  Davis 
appointed  Secretary.  Snethen  preached  a  preparatory  sermon, 
which  may  be  found  in  the  periodical.  The  doors  were  opened 
to  spectators  during  the  sessions.  Twenty-three  delegates  were 
appointed  to  the  General  Convention,  and  the  names  are  in  evi- 
dence of  the  high  character  of  the  men,  whether  itinerants  or 
local  preachers  or  laymen.  The  proceedings  were  also  published 
in  the  three  city  secular  papers.  The  15th  of  November,  1827, 
was  named  as  the  time,  and  Baltimore  as  the  place,  for  the 
General  Convention  of  Reformers.  It  was  a  large  and  united 
meeting.  Henry  B.  Bascom  now  entered  the  lists,  stating  in  his 
prefatory  paper :  "Hitherto  I  have  been  silent  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  but  'the  time  past  must  suffice.'  In  future  I  shall  speak 
for  conscience'  sake  and  from  principle."  He  was  now  stationed 
at  Uniontown,  Pa.,  in  the  Pittsburgh  District,  and  was  thirty 
years  of  age,  having  been  fourteen  in  the  itinerant  ministry.  He 


VOL.  n  — 


1  Now  a  colored  Methodist  church. 

H 


98 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


was  the  rising  sun  of  the  denomination.  George  Brown  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference  now  also  became  active  as  a  writer  for 
Eeform  under  the  incognito  "Timothy,'*  in  an  address  to  the 
"Junior  Bishop,  Hedding.*'  It  was  in  scathing  but  good-tem- 
pered review  of  the  Bishop's  address  to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference 
recently  held  in  that  city  during  which  he  advised  against  the 
Keformers  and  their  periodical  as  agitating  the  Church  for  a 
cause  not  having  one  in  twenty  favoring  it.  He  advised  both 
preachers  and  members  to  defer  agitation  until  the  General  Con- 
ference, as  that  was  the  only  proper  place  for  such  a  discussion. 
His  purpose  was  held  to  be  to  silence  investigation,  and  the  effect 
was  to  stimulate  Reform  in  the  West,  inasmuch  as  the  policy 
suggested  to  its  advocates  meant  surrender  and  subjection. 
Shinn's  masterful  paper,  already  referred  to  as  opening  this 
volume,  was  printed  as  "  an  extra  sheet "  and  widely  circulated. 
He  comes  to  its  defence  in  two  numbers  of  the  periodical,  and 
with  his  incisive  logic  drives  his  critics  to  the  wall  of  defeat, 
making,  among  many  strong  points,  the  following  excusator}-  of 
the  Union  Societies:  "If  to  this  end  they  deem  it  expedient  to 
form  themselves  into  'Union  Societies,'  it  is  presumed  they  have 
as  good  a  right  to  do  so  as  ever  Mr.  Wesley  had  to  form  societies 
in  the  Church  of  England  and  call  them  'The  United  Societies.' 
These  united  or  union  societies  were  multiplied,  the  members  of 
which  continued  to  be  regular  members  of  the  Church  of  England 
during  the  whole  of  Mr.  Wesley's  lifetime."  Xo  one  ever 
attempted  to  answer  this  parallel  —  it  was  unanswerable.  Happy 
had  it  been  if  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  of  America  had 
been  as  wise  in  its  generation  as  was  the  Church  of  England. 
Shinn  adds:  "A  great  outcry  was  raised  against  him  and  his 
united  societies,  and  some,  as  in  modern  times,  urged  them  to 
leave  the  Church.  To  whom  he  replied:  'As  to  your  last  advice, 
to  renounce  communion  with  the  Church,  I  dare  not.  Xay,  but 
let  them  thrust  us  out.  We  will  not  leave  the  ship;  if  you  cast 
us  out  of  it,  then  our  Lord  will  take  us  up. '  "  ^ 

Rumors  now  became  rife  that  proscription  and  expulsion  would 
soon  be  resorted  to,  and  the  Reformers  prepared  themselves  for 
the  worst.  January,  1827,  H.  B.  Bascom,  as  "Dissenter,"  again 
returns  to  the  succor  and  dealt  sledge-hammer  blows.  Referring 
to  the  Episcopal  Address  at  Pittsburgh,  of  which  he  was  an  ear- 
witness,  he  says :  "  The  effect  that  has  followed  the  defection  of 
three  or  four  half-hearted  reformers  in  different  sections  of  our 

1  "  Wesley's  Works." 


SHINN  AND  BASCOM  ON  THE  SITUATION  99 


country;  men  who  publicly  and  privately  committed  themselves 
to  the  interests  of  reform,  and  then  for  the  sake  of  a  place,  as  it 
would  seem,  cowered  down  most  civilly  at  the  feet  of  episcopal 
patronage.  .  .  .    Reform  is  now  what  it  was  then.    If  their 
change  has  been  the  result  of  honest  conviction,  why  not  let  us 
know  the  powerful  reasons  which  produced  that  conviction?  .  .  . 
Let  them  [the  Reformers]  remain  in  the  Church  till  they  be  cast 
out  or  compelled  to  leave  it;  an  event  at  present  not  to  be  strongly 
looked  for;  but  should  it  occur,  we  shall  then,  in  the  order  of 
providence,  be  under  the  necessity  of  resting  our  cause  and 
appeal  with  men  and  churches  better  informed,  and  God  the 
judge  of  all."    These  citations  call  for  two  observations:  he  did 
not  believe  with  many  leading  Reformers  that  the  authorities 
would  resort  to  expulsion  of  its  members  for  opinions'  sake,  for 
this  is  the  last  and  only  analysis  of  it  posterity  will  ever  allow, 
despite  the  perversions  and  allegations  of  the  prosecutors.  Yet 
the  facts  will  show  that  he  was  treading  on  the  very  heels  of  sys- 
tematic, frequent,  and  numerous  expulsions  for  being  members 
of  the  Union  Societies  and  supporting  the  Mutual  Mights,  for  to 
this  complexion  it  will  come  at  last.    Again,  he  did  not  see  the 
Hamiltonian  maxim  already  twice  recorded,  that  power  over  a 
man's  substance  is  power  over  his  will.    Like  his  father,  he 
was  no  economist;  both  were  embarrassed  with  debt,  and  at  the 
father's  death  in  1833  his  step-mother  and  a  large  family  came 
upon  him  for  support.    He  wrestled  with  it  manfully,  and  the 
Church  authorities,  in  view  of  his  abilities  and  adaptability,  ten- 
dered him  the  presidency  of  Madison  College  in  1827,  but  in  a 
year  or  more  he  was  deeper  than  ever  in  debt.    He  was  elected 
chaplain  to  Congress,  and  at  the  end  of  his  term  accepted  the 
agency  of  the  American  Colonization  Society,  and  in  1832  a  pro- 
fessorship in  Augusta  College,  Georgia,  where  he  remained  some 
years.    As  will  be  made  patent,  debt  compelled  him  after  1832 
to  surcease  active  advocacy  of  Reform,  but,  as  will  also  be  proved, 
he  never  abandoned  or  repudiated  the  principles  of  Reform. 
Had  he  foreseen  how  the  Church's  power  over  his  substance 
would  paralyze  his  *will  and  hold  him  under  its  patronage,  he 
would  have  been  more  charitable  to  others  who  silently  subsided, 
bowed  their  heads,  and  allowed  the  storm  of  persecution  in  1827-30 
to  pass  over  them.    This  writer  would  be  untrue  to  his  better 
instincts  if  he  did  not  sympathize  with  the  large  number  of 
itinerants  specially  who  heeded  the  cry  of  wife  and  children,  and 
who  accepted  bread  at  the  price  of  silence;  but  he  would  be 


100 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


equally  untrue  to  his  better  instincts  if  he  extenuated  the  conduct 
of  those  in  any  relation  who  denied  their  affiliations,  and  used 
tongue  and  pen  and  official  position  against  their  former  associates 
in  Reform.  Treachery  can  never  be  condoned  in  any  cause. 
One  witness  must  be  introduced,  one  of  Bascom's  most  intimate 
friends,  and  the  author  of  his  biography,  himself  a  pervert  from 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  evidential  of  the  position  that 
Bascom  never  abandoned  or  repudiated  the  principles  of  Keform. 
"  It  is  believed  that  he  was  never  known  to  utter  a  word  unfriendly 
to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  nor  to  do  any  act  that  could 
prejudice  her  interests  or  reputation.  ...  In  a  period  of  thirty 
years  he  changed  some  of  his  opinions  respecting  things  non- 
essential; and  he  who  has  read  and  thought  for  thirty  years, 
without  changing  any  of  his  opinions,  has  had  none  of  his  own 
to  change."  ^  Ere  the  third  volume  of  the  Mutual  Bights  closed, 
in  which  Bascom  figured  conspicuously,  events  of  the  gravest 
moment  occurred  in  Baltimore,  to  which  a  new  chapter  will  be 
devoted. 

1  "  Life  of  Bascom,"  by  Rev.  Moses  M.  Henkle.  Louisville,  1854.  12ino.  408 
pp.    Citation  from  p.  383. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Agitation  superinduced  by  the  Reform  Convention  of  1826  —  More  Union  Societies 
formed  out  of  the  cream  of  the  Church ;  examples  —  Bascom  again  in  the  front 
—  Baltimore  a  camp  of  spies;  principle  against  power;  the  battle  set  —  The 
case  of  Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  suspended  and  then  expelled  the  Baltimore 
Conference  for  reading  and  circulating  the  Mutual  Rights ;  full  particulars  of 
the  whole  matter  —  Effect  of  it  on  Reformers  various;  Shinn  and  Snethen  on 
the  case;  Bascom  aroused  by  it  —  Rev.  George  Brown  and  Bishop  Hedding  — 
McCaine  determines  to  investigate  the  foundations  of  the  old  Church ;  remark- 
able discoveries  as  to  the  surreptitious  nature  of  its  Episcopacy  —  It  raised  a 
new  issue ;  thoughtful  Reformers  hesitated  as  to  the  publication  of  the  "  History 
and  Mystery  "  — Dr.  Bond's  Appeal  to  the  Methodists ;  a  review  of  it;  "  purse- 
string  "  argument  —  Dr.  Bond's  amazing  conceit  exhibited. 

The  publication  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Maryland  Reform 
Convention  in  the  public  city  press,  with  the  reasons  for  their 
action,  led  to  a  counter  publication  of  local  preachers,  stewards, 
and  trustees  of  Baltimore  city  station  in  review.  This  in  turn 
was  answered  by  Asa  Shinn  under  his  own  name  in  "  An  Appeal 
to  the  Good  Sense  of  the  Citizens  of  the  United  States,"  in  which 
he  exhaustively  covers  the  whole  ground  of  controversy.  The 
conceded  fact  that  Reform  had  permeated  almost  the  entire  mem- 
bership in  Baltimore  was  a  fact  no  longer.  Dr.  Bond  became  an 
active  though  concealed  opponent.  His  personal  influence  was 
controlling  with  not  a  few,  while  the  bitterness  of  the  conten- 
tion, mistakes  of  judgment,  and  ill-advised  words  of  certain  in- 
discreet Reformers  prejudiced  their  own  cause;  the  timid  yielded, 
and  the  love  of  the  "  old  church  mother  "  with  more  was  decisive, 
not  of  argument,  but  of  their  position.  Laymen  who  had  been 
neutral  could  be  neutral  no  longer.  To  show  your  colors  was  a 
demand  on  both  sides.  There  were  laymen  enough  who  were 
stanch  adherents  of  the  doctrine,  "Let  well  enough  alone,"  of 
whom  Christian  Keener  was  a  pure  and  distinguished  example, 
to  make  a  considerable  party  and  give  to  Dr.  Bond  the  cue,  which 
he  adroitly  employed,  that  it  was  a  laj^men's  uprising  to  "defe- 
cate "  the  Church  of  a  disorderly  lay-element;  the  Episcopacy  and 
its  lieutenants,  the  elders,  had  not  impaired  their  dignity  by  any 
condescending  notice  of  the  "  disaffected  spirits."   The  lines  were 

101 


102 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


more  closely  drawn  than  ever.   More  Union  Societies  were  organ- 
ized.   A  strong  one  was  formed  in  Frederick  County,  Md.,  with 
Jonathan  Forrest,  the  old  Itinerant  of  heroic  service  now  retired, 
as  President,  and  Dr.  Henry  Baker,  Secretary,  ^sicholas  Snethen, 
Corresponding  Secretary.    Another  was  organized  in  Baltimore 
for  the  Fell's  Point  brethren.    It  was  precipitated  by  an  effort  of 
the  preacher  in  charge  to  change  the  character  of  this  eastern 
station  for  more  effective  control  of  the  property,  but  was  defeated 
by  the  bold,  righteous  stand  of  the  membership  by  a  vote  of  forty - 
nine  to  twenty.    He  retired  from  the  meeting  with  the  declara- 
tion, "  You  may  go  home  rejoicing  in  your  victory  over  Methodism 
and  Methodist  discipline,  and  your  triumph  over  me !  but  I  give 
you  notice  that  I  will  leave  you  without  trustees ;  for  there  is  no 
law  to  compel  me  to  nominate  according  to  the  charter.    I  will 
leave  the  station  as  it  is  with  only  three  trustees."    Far  up  in 
Vermont,  under  date  May  17,  1827,  a  society  was  organized,  one 
of  Shinn's  "extra  sheets"  having  found  its  way  there,  and  was 
made  the  basis  of  the  organization,  as  their  first  information  of 
Reform.    This  nearly  three  years  after  the  first  "  Union  "  was 
formed  in  Maryland,  and  in  evidence  how  persistently  and  suc- 
cessfully in  the  main  the  Itinerants  were,  by  silence  themselves 
and  suppression  of  news,  in  keeping  the  Church  in  ignorance  of 
the  new  movement,  and  then  to  twit  the  Reformers  with  their 
paucity  of  numbers  compared  with  the  whole,  and  the  indiffer- 
ence or  opposition  of  the  "  people  "  to  any  changes.    Another  was 
organized  in  Uniontown,  Pa.,  where  Bascom  was  stationed.  A 
large  meeting  of  local  ]3reachers  and  members  was  convened  in 
Pittsburgh,  March  30,  1827,  preliminary  to  a  general  call  for  a 
Convention  of  Reform  Methodists,  which  was  held  May  23  en- 
suing, in  the  Methodist  Church,  the  charter  here  being  also  of 
such  a  character  that  the  small  opposing  element  with  the 
preacher  in  charge  did  not  dare  to  interfere.    Charles  Avery, 
local  preacher,  was  made  Chairman,  and  Henry  Ebert,  Secretary, 
while  the  delegates  from  all  the  circumjacent  country  were  repre- 
sentative business  and  Church  men  in  their  homes,  among  them 
Dr.  H.  D.  Sellers,  John  Emory's  brother-in-law,  who  had  recently 
removed  to  Pittsburgh  from  Centreville,  Md.,  where,  as  found, 
he  was  an  active  Reformer.    Their  resolves  were  courteous  but 
decisive.    At  Steubenville,  0.,  a  strong  society  was  formed. 
Cincinnati  was  a  hive  of  Reformers,  and  shall  soon  be  promi- 
nently noticed.    As  far  south  as  Alabama  "  Unions "  were  or- 
ganized, while  the  growth  in  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  was 


BASCOM  IN  THE  FRONT— A  CRISIS  103 

phenomenal.  Conspicuously  the  society  in  Centreville,  Md., 
needs  mention.  It  was  organized  not  until  June  4,  1827,  the 
"suspension"  of  Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  of  the  Baltimore  Confer- 
ence the  previous  April  being  the  inciting  cause,  though  the  move- 
ment had  many  strong  adherents  long  before.  Its  list  of  officers 
covers  the  salt  of  the  Church  and  the  social  influence  of  the  com- 
munity: President,  Dr.  John  D.  Emory;  Vice-Presidents,  Kev. 
W.  T.  Ringgold  and  John  M'Feely ;  Secretary,  Thomas  C.  Brown; 
Treasurer,  William  Harper,  Jr. ;  Corresponding  Committee,  Hon. 
P.  B.  Hopper,  Dr.  John  D.  Emory,  John  W.  Bordley,  Thomas 
C.  Brown,  and  W.  H.  Bordley.  Rev.  Thomas  Reed  closed  the 
meeting  with  prayer.  They  all  united  in  sending  delegates 
to  the  General  Convention  called  for  Baltimore,  November  15, 
1827. 

Among  the  last  contributors  to  Vol.  III.,  Muhial  Rights,  was 
"Anti-Vulcan,"  Rev.  James  Sewell,  the  eccentric  but  effective 
preacher  of  the  Baltimore  Conference.  His  paper  was  "Ten 
Links  of  an  Iron  Chain,"  an  allegory  showing  the  growth  of  the 
hierarchy.  It  was  his  first  and  last  appearance.  Like  many 
others,  when  the  storm  broke  he  fled  to  cover,  not  a  few  declar- 
ing with  white-faced  perfidy  with  Peter,  "  I  know  not  the  man !  " 
Bascom,  as  "Dissenter"  or  "Presbyter"  or  "Neale,"  continued 
his  bugle-blasts  through  the  periodical.  One  clear  note  sent  its 
echoes  through  the  ranks  of  Reform :  "  If  the  time  has  arrived 
when  a  man  cannot  express  his  opinions  as  to  the  scriptural 
character  and  relative  legitimacy  of  our  mode  of  church  govern- 
ment, without  subjecting  himself  to  ecclesiastical  censure  and 
anathema,  as  exemplified  in  the  proceedings  of  the  late  Virginia 
Conference,  then  in  this  case  I  think  the  sooner  we  arrived  at  a 
crisis  the  better;  the  world  ought  to  know,  and  heaven  and  earth 
record,  that  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States 
is  to  be  governed  by  human  authority,  and  not  by  moral  evidence 
as  found  in  the  Bible  and  other  kindred  sources  of  accredited 
information."  The  crisis  was  at  hand.  The  whisper  had  already 
gone  forth  from  the  Episcopacy :  Reform  must  be  expelled  out  of 
the  Church.  Thus  God-fearing  men  were  arraigned  against  God- 
fearing men,  but  the  blind  prejudice  of  devotion  to  the  old  regime, 
right  or  wrong,  on  the  one  part,  and  the  fever-heat  of  determined 
purpose  not  to  secede  but  to  compel  concessions,  on  the  other 
part,  called  these  forces  to  confront  each  other.  The  manoeuvring 
between  them  was  worthy  of  trained  strategists.  The  Church  in 
Baltimore  was  a  camp  of  spies.    They  met  in  public  worship, 


104  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


joined  in  the  social  means  of  grace,  wept  and  prayed  together, 
then  went  out  to  plot  and  counter-plot;  the  one  section  verily 
believing  that  for  laymen  to  participate  in  church  government 
meant  the  destruction  of  the  Episcopacy,  an  end  to  the  Itinerancy 
and  of  the  Methodist  religion.  How  strange  the  delusion  seems 
to-day.  The  other  section  as  verily  believed  that  right  and  duty, 
conscience  and  honor,  demanded  that  they  should  stand  by  each 
other,  and  push  their  reconstructive  plan  as  in  the  best  interests 
of  the  Church  they  so  much  loved.  It  was  a  banter  of  Principle 
against  Power. 

In  1821  the  Baltimore  Conference  received  on  trial  a  young 
man,  tall,  erect,  but  slender  and  of  feeble  health.  His  name  was 
Dennis  B.  Dorsey.  His  mind  was  logical  and  metaphysical,  and 
he  was  a  close  student.  He  advanced  by  regular  steps  to  ordina- 
tion as  an  elder ;  he  married,  and  in  1826  was  on  Harford  circuit, 
with  a  youth,  William  C.  Pool,  as  an  associate.  The  Reform 
literature  of  the  times  came  under  his  notice.  He  read  and 
approved,  and  quietly  recommended  it  to  others.  He  was  modest 
and  did  not  write  publicly,  but  deep  convictions  of  the  rightful- 
ness of  the  cause  held  him  in  thrall.  He  says :  "  I  wrote  a  few 
lines  to  a  friend,  Mr.  Hugh  M.  Sharp  [the  writer  gives  the  name 
that  perfidy  may  be  associated  with  it  as  it  goes  down  to  pos- 
terity], in  which  I  gave  him  information  of  'a  work  on  church 
government,  published  in  Baltimore,  by  a  committee  of  Methodist 
preachers  and  members,  exposing  to  open  view  some  of  the  errors 
of  our  government  and  administration.'  I  also  informed  him 
that  the  'work  was  a  very  satisfactory  one,  well  worth  his  atten- 
tion that  I  had  'taken  it  more  than  eighteen  months,  and  was 
well  pleased  with  it ' ;  that  it  contained  so  many  pages,  and  came 
at  so  much  per  year;  that  several  in  that  part  (Huntington  cir- 
cuit. Pa.)  took  it,  and  were  well  pleased  with  it;  and,  finally, 
requested  him  to  let  me  know  immediately,  if  he  desired  to  have 
the  work,  and  to  inquire  of  a  brother,  whom  I  named,  whether 
he  would  take  it  also.  In  conclusion  I  remarked  to  liim,  'you 
need  not  mention  this  to  any  other  person,  if  you  please.'  But 
when  Robert  Minshell,  the  circuit  preacher,  came  round,  my 
friend  Sharp  betrayed  me,  by  giving  him  my  letter  to  read.  Mr. 
Minshell  then,  according  to  his  own  telling  in  Conference,  asked 
him  for  a  copy  of  the  letter,  to  which  he  replied  that  he  might 
have  the  original,  as  it  was  of  no  use  to  him."  Minshell,  it 
appears,  wrote  to  David  Steele,  and  he  communicated  with  John 
Davis,  now  stationed  in  Baltimore,  who  reported  it  further, 


DENNIS    B.  DORSEY. 

First  Reform  martyr  of  1827  for  lay  rights  and 
<  liberty  of  speech. 


D.  B.  DORSET'S  TRIAL  AND  EXPULSION  105 


"until,  finally,  it  was  brought  before  the  Annual  Conference, 
first  in  the  form  of  an  objection,  and  then  as  a  charge." 

The  Conference  of  April  12,  1827,  was  held  in  the  Eutaw  Street 
church.  The  writer  recently  stood  within  the  now  ancient  build- 
ing, its  interior  but  little  disturbed,  the  great  sweep  of  galleries, 
the  pews,  the  chancel,  if  not  the  pulpit,  as  of  old.  Imagination 
peopled  the  place  with  the  Conference  in  session.  The  bishops 
present  were  M'Kendree,  Soule,  George,  and  Eoberts,  the  last 
tiiree  mostly  presiding,  relieving  the  now  feeble  M'Kendree. 
The  presiding  elders  were  Joseph  Fry,  Stephen  G.  Koszel,  Gerard 
Morgan,  Marmaduke  Pierce,  and  John  Baer.  There  were  present 
such  men  as  Waugh,  Slicer,  John  Davis,  Bryson,  Norval  Wilson, 
E-yland,  Guest,  James  M.  Hanson,  Gere,  Alfred  Griffith,  James 
Sewell,  and  others ;  but  these  are  remembered  as  participants  in 
Eeform,  for  or  against,  and  with  a  number,  both  for  and  against 
as  the  wind  blew.  Expectation  was  in  the  air  so  that  there  was 
a  full  attendance,  though  the  galleries  were  empty  and  on  the 
floor  only  members  of  the  Conference,  for  Methodist  preachers 
did  not  yet  assemble  with  open  doors.  The  examination  of  offi- 
cial character  is  in  progress.  Bishop  Soule  calls  the  name  of 
Dennis  B.  Dorsey.  The  tall,  erect,  slender  young  man,  now  pale 
from  recent  severe  illness,  quietly  arose  from  the  rear  of  the 
audience  room  and  faced  the  Chair.  The  Bishop  said,  "Is  there 
anything  against  his  character?"  Stephen  G.  Boszel  stated  that 
"  Brother  Dorsey  had  been  away  from  his  circuit  during  the  year, 
under  the  pretence  of  being  afflicted,  but  had  been  travelling  ex- 
tensively, circulating  a  work  derogatory  to  the  interests  of  the 
Church."  Messrs.  Steele  and  Minshell  were  referred  to  as  wit- 
nesses. The  latter  read  Dorsey 's  letter  to  brother  Sharp,  relating 
the  circumstances.  The  Bishop  said  that  if  he  had  anything  to 
say  in  reply  he  was  now  at  liberty  to  speak.  "  As  I  saw  no  formal 
charge,  I  had  nothing  to  say,  only  to  acknowledge  the  letter  read 
to  be  my  own  production.  I  then  retired,  and,  after  consider- 
able deliberation  on  the  subject,  the  case  was  decided."  The 
next  morning,  when  the  Journal  was  read,  Dorsey  learned  that 
a  formal  charge  had  been  recorded,  which  was,  "for  having  actively 
engaged  in  the  circulation  of  an  improper  periodical  work.  The 
president  then  announced  that  the  decision  of  the  Conference  in 
my  case  was  'that  my  character  pass,  upon  my  being  admonished 
by  the  president,  and  promising  the  Conference  that  I  would 
desist  from  taking  any  agency  in  spreading  or  supporting  any 
publication  in  opposition  to  our  discipline  or  government.'  The 


106 


EltiTOBY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


admonition  was  then  given  from  the  chair,  after  I  had  signified 
my  disposition  to  submit  to  it,  for  the  sake  of  brethrens'  con- 
science. I  was  then  required  to  give  a  pledge  that  I  would 
comply  with  the  latter  part  of  the  resolution ;  which  I  refused  to 
do,  while  the  resolution  remained  in  its  unqualified  form.  I  then 
replied  to  all  the  important  items  of  the  admonition,  and  gave 
my  reasons  for  not  complying  with  the  latter  part  of  the  resolu- 
tion." The  substance  of  this  answer  he  has  preserved  in  his  full 
statement  of  the  case  made  to  "  Vindex,"  Henry  B.  Bascom,  who 
solicited  the  information  after  he  heard  of  the  trial.  It  may  be 
found  in  the  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  III.  It  shows  how  the  bishops, 
the  preachers,  and  the  book  agents  read  it,  exchanging  it  with 
the  Methodist  Magazine,  and  therefore  the  members  should  be 
allowed  to  read  it. 

The  paragraph,  however,  which  perhaps  was  the  ground  of  a 
final  charge  of  "contumacy,"  is  the  following:  "I  have  read  the 
Mutual  Rights,  sir,  for  myself,  and  think  highly  of  the  work,  and 
recommend  it  to  every  member  of  this  Conference."  The  Con- 
ference refused  to  pass  his  character  on  this  answer,  and  the  case 
was  postponed  to  the  next  day ;  those  in  charge  of  the  prosecution 
evidently  halted  in  their  purpose  on  such  evidence.  The  next 
day  Dorsey  again  made  answer,  in  which  he  specially  demanded 
the  "  rule  of  discipline  "  under  which  he  was  being  tried.  This 
the  presiding  Bishop  evaded  by  stating  that  the  Annual  Con- 
ference had  authority  to  make  rules  and  regulations  for  its  own 
members.  But  it  was  parried  at  once,  though  unfounded  in  fact, 
that  "  in  such  case  the  Conference  must  be  acting  in  its  legislative 
character,"  and  if  so,  how  could  the  same  body  at  the  same  time 
both  act  as  legislative  and  executive,  clinching  it  with  the  corol- 
lary; "Unless  you  prove  that  these  two  powers  should  be  united 
in  one  body;  which  would  astonish  my  understanding,  and  form 
a  monstrous  anomaly  in  ecclesiastical  government,  in  this  coun- 
try." He  closed  by  asking  again  that  the  rule  of  discipline 
should  be  produced.  He  retired.  Roszel  softened,  and  moved 
that  "  his  character  pass  on  his  being  reproved  by  the  president 
for  his  contumacy  in  resisting  the  authority  of  the  Conference." 
But  the  body  was  now  in  no  mood  for  concession.  Job  Guest 
then  moved  "  that  the  bishops  be  and  are  hereby  requested  not 
to  give  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  an  appointment  for  the  present  year, 
and  that  his  name  be  so  returned  on  the  minutes,  with  the  reason 
assigned  why  he  has  not  an  appointment;  viz.,  his  contumacy  in 
regard  to  the  authority  of  the  Conference."    It  prevailed,  and  at 


RESULTS  OF  DOBSEY'S  PERSECUTION 


107 


once  Dorsey  requested  "a  copy  of  the  proceedings."  It  was  laid 
over  to  the  next  day.  Meantime  the  prosecutors  were  more  em- 
barrassed than  ever.  Joshua  Wells  moved  that  "  his  contumacy 
in  regard  to  the  Conference  be  retained  on  the  Journal  but  not 
published  in  the  minutes."  This  was  carried.  The  proceedings 
of  an  Inquisition  are  not  proper  for  the  public,  whether  Romish 
or  Methodist.  The  next  day  Dorsey,  not  being  able  to  be  present 
through  illness,  wrote  the  Conference  that  he  should  appeal  to 
the  General  Conference  and  requesting  that  this  purpose  be 
entered  upon  the  minutes.  They  had  another  perplexing  delib- 
eration over  granting  his  request  for  a  copy  of  the  proceedings; 
"  the  secretary,  Mr.  Waugh,  and  others,  made  some  remarks  on 
the  impropriety  of  my  obtaining  such  a  document,  without  some 
restraint  not  to  publish  it  until  the  General  Conference."  Fi- 
nally Stephen  G.Roszel,  who  either  had  more  sense  or  more  charity 
than  the  other  prosecutors,  moved  that  "his  request  be  granted." 
What  was  feared  was  the  ripening  public  sentiment  of  the  city 
and  elsewhere  in  sympathy  with  the  Reformers  personally  and 
their  principles.  It  was  quite  general  in  all  the  non-hierarchal 
denominations.  Realizing  it  as  an  adverse  force,  the  anti- 
reformers  said  it  was  due  to  the  "jealousy"  other  Christians 
entertained  of  the  success  of  the  Methodists.  Thus  a  young 
preacher  in  feeble  health,  with  a  family,  was  thrown  upon  his 
own  resources  of  personal  poverty  for  a  support  for  circulating 
the  Mutual  Bights^  and  for  contumacy  in  declining  to  criminate 
himself  under  examination  before  the  Conference.  That  tli,is 
correctly  states  the  case  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  Bishop 
Roberts  dissented  to  the  proceedings  largely,  having  afterward 
stated  to  one  of  the  editorial  Committee  of  the  Mutual  Bights 
that  he  was  not  an  enemy  of  free  inquiry,  remarking,  "If  our 
discipline  and  government  will  not  bear  the  test  of  examination, 
let  them  go  down."  It  will  save  space  and  avoid  a  reference  to 
a  vast  mass  of  excusatory  twaddle  to  establish  this  fact  beyond 
dispute,  that  the  proscription  was  against  free  inquiry  and  a  free 
press. 

Two  opposite  effects  were  wrought  by  this  prosecution  of 
Dorsey.  The  time-serving,  the  irresolute,  the  dependent,  the 
discouraged  among  the  itinerants  were  silenced ;  while  the  man- 
ful, the  heroic,  the  steel-true,  and  unabashed  nailed  their  colors 
to  the  masthead;  and  not  a  few  who  had  been  hesitating  as  to 
open  committal,  such  as  Bascom,  hesitated  no  longer.  The  action 
of  the  Conference  was  not  a  surprise  to  Shinn ;  the  time  for  pun- 


108 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ishment  of  Keformers,  as  he  predicted,  had  come;  but  to  more 
hopeful  men,  like  Snethen,  it  was  a  sad  surprise.  Peaceful, 
Christian  measures  of  adjustment  were  at  an  end.  The  Union 
Society  of  Baltimore,  and  many  elsewhere,  entered  protest  against 
the  proceedings,  but  accepted  the  issue  thus  joined:  "Xot  only 
to  withhold  representation  from  the  membership  and  local  min- 
istry, but  also  to  keep  them  in  ignorance  of  the  true  principles 
of  church  government.  .  .  .  The  society  deem  it  but  just  to  say, 
that  several  members  of  the  Conference,  together  with  Bishop 
Koberts,  manifested  a  liberal  spirit  on  tiie  occasion."  Shinn 
addressed  a  paper  to  the  Conference  reviewing  at  length  the 
situation,  accentuated  with  interrogations  which  must  have  cut 
to  the  quick  certain  ex-Eef ormers :  "I  retain  a  lively  recollection 
of  the  times  and  seasons  when  an  Emory,  a  Kyland,  and  a  Griffith 
made  a  noble  stand  on  your  floor;  and  when  other  intelligent 
brethren  with  them  plead  the  cause  of  liberty  against  the  dan- 
gerous accumulations  of  ecclesiastical  power.  Whence  is  it  then 
that  in  your  last  session,  you  laid  an  embargo  upon  the  Mutual 
Bights  ?  Is  Emory  gone  from  among  you?  Is  the  voice  of  Ryland 
no  more  heard?  Has  Griffith  retired  to  the  mournful  solitudes 
of  discouraged  silence?  Does  modest  Hanson  still  refuse  to  open 
his  mouth?  And  have  Waugh  and  Davis  found  out  that  truth 
reaches  too  deep  to  be  safely  followed  in  all  its  connections? 
Does  the  thunder  of  S.  G.  E.  [Roszel]  still  terrify  the  rising 
ministry?  And  have  your  young  men  'stipulated'  to  enjoy  the 
consolations  of  passive  obedience  and  non-resistance?  Whence 
is  it  that  these  dismal  tidings  have  come  to  us  from  Baltimore?" 
As  already  hinted,  in  his  youth  Shinn  had  been  struck  by  a  horse- 
shoe upon  the  head,  and  some  years  after  suffered  temporary 
mental  derangement  therefrom;  now  it  was  whispered  that  he 
was  crazy.  He  meets  it  at  the  close  of  this  masterful  address : 
'•'Bartimeus  thinks  it  best  to  meet  this  friendly  and  sympathizing 
suggestion  with  a  smile,  and  to  wait  patiently  until  some  admirers 
of  episcopacy  will  condescend  to  answer  his  crazy  arguments." 
It  is  evident  that  Shinn  could  not  see  the  fine  distinction  after- 
ward raised  by  Emory  and  a  few  others,  that  their  Reform  senti- 
ments never  went  farther  than  an  elective  eldership;  one  cannot 
but  sympathize  with  the  filial  attempt  of  Robert  Emory  to  exon- 
erate his  venerated  father,  but  truth  and  posterity  will  not  heed 
the  appeal 

Shinn  was  now  in  the  thickest  of  the  fray.  June,  1827,  he 
meets  the  charge  that  "  Reformers  are  endeavoring  to  expose  our 


SHINN,  SJSfETHEN,  AND  BASCOM  ROUSED  109 

church  to  contempt,"  and  in  a  "P.S."  thus  pulverizes  the  inno- 
cents who  were  so  pure  in  speech  and  so  charitable  in  temper 
that  longer  association  with  Reformers  could  not  be  tolerated: 
"  Do  those  brethren  who  seem  so  much  concerned  for  the  preser- 
vation of  a  Christian  spirit,  think  it  altogether  Christian  for  our 
opponents  confidently  to  assert  that  we  are  'backsliders,'  that 
the  spirit  of  our  writings  'originated  in  hell,'  and  then  proceed 
to  suspend  the  reforming  ministers  and  expel  private  members 
from  the  Church?  Must  we  receive  all  this,  as  a  perfectly  gracious 
and  Christian  spirit  in  our  old  side  friends,  and  not  presume  to 
speak  to  them,  except  it  be  done  with  all  possible  softness  and 
submissiveness?"  Snethen  met  the  issue  May,  1827,  in  "An 
Address  to  the  Friends  of  Keform."  He  traversed  the  selection 
of  Dorsey  as  the  victim,  the  ministerial  protomartyr  of  Reform, 
who  was  only  a  reader  of  the  Mutual  Bights,  and  sought  to  make 
other  readers,  while  the  writers  were  untouched  by  the  rod.  He 
says,  "  It  is  doubtful  if  a  single  travelling  preacher  has  written 
for  the  Wesleyan  Repository  or  the  Mutual  Rights  who  was  not 
known  to  his  superiors."  The  only  explanation  that  will  stand 
investigation  is  that  the  suspension  of  Dorsey  was  a  tentative 
effort;  they  knew  the  proscription  was  for  opinions'  sake,  only, 
and  they  feared  to  touch  the  leaders ;  they  thought  an  example 
would  precipitate  a  secession, —  an  act  most  devoutly  now  wished 
by  them,  as  it  would  save  them  from  the  odium  of  further  expul- 
sions in  violation  of  Christian  sentiment  everywhere.  Snethen 
further  urged:  "The  truth  is,  brethren,  that  there  is  the  very 
essence  of  persecution  in  this  act  of  the  Baltimore  Conference, 
...  we  are  not  to  be  reasoned  with,  but  punished ;  .  .  .  your  turn, 
my  turn,  may  come  next.  ...  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  be  driven 
by  the  power  of  a  majority  from  the  last  asylum  of  harmlessness ; 
to  be  reduced  to  the  dreadful  alternative  of  dissimulation  or  bear- 
ing witness  against  one's  self.  ...  It  will,  I  know  it  will,  it 
must  be  asked,  where  is  Snethen?  I  trust  while  he  is  among  the 
living  but  one  answer  will  be  given  to  this  question :  he  is  at  his 
post,  he  is  on  the  front  of  the  contest,  he  is  shouting,  On,  brethren, 
on!  and  if  he  fall, 'it  will  be  with  a  wound  in  his  breast,  and  his 
head  direct  towards  his  opponent.  .  .  .  But  I  call  upon  you  by 
every  sacred  name  to  resist  this  inquisitorial  power,  this  attempt 
to  renew  in  America  the  old,  the  exploded  principle  of  torture, 
this  monstrous  outrage  upon  the  principles  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty:  the  punishing  of  men  for  not  submitting  to  criminate 
themselves.    Oh,  defend  to  the  last  extremity  this  final  sanctuary 


110 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  oppressed  innocence.  .  .  .  The  fiery  trial  has  come  upon  one 
who  is  as  the  shadow  of  a  man,  a  walking  skeleton,  and  I  yet  go 
free !  .  .  .  Lord,  let  the  young  man  live  and  not  die !  Let  not 
the  wife  of  his  youth  be  a  premature  widow.  I  cannot  now  desert 
the  cause  and  be  innocent  before  God  or  man."  Never  before 
had  he  written  with  such  an  incisive  pen;  he  was  dumfounded 
at  the  audacity  of  the  prosecutors.    He  could  have  exclaimed :  — 

"  Can  such  things  be  and  overcome  us  like 
A  summer  cloud  without  our  special  wonder  ?  " 

When  Bascom  received  tidings  of  the  method  of  Dorsey's  sus- 
pension, he  was  warmly  indignant,  and  made  answer  through  the 
Mutual  Bights,  April  27,  1827,  in  hot,  blistering  words,  after- 
ward quoted  as  part  of  the  allegations  against  "  readers  "  of  the 
periodical.  He  denounced  the  action  as  "  an  overbearing  act  of 
abandoned  tyranny.  ...  I  cannot  refrain  from  asking  where 
three  or  four  members  of  the  Baltimore  Conference  were  during 
this  labored  deed  of  hard-earned  infamy?  Did  they  sit  by  in 
inglorious  silence?  ...  On  hearing  of  the  treatment  you  and 
others  received  at  the  Baltimore  Conference  ten  or  twelve  persons 
of  my  charge  have  declared  for  reform,  and  are  ready  to  aid  you 
with  their  influence  and  purses."  Signed  with  what  became  his 
favorite  anonymous,  "Vindex."  June  1,  1827,  he  submitted  for 
publication,  under  the  pseudonym  of  "Neale,"  "Reasons  in  Plea 
for  Reform,"  etc.,  covering  seven  pages  of  the  periodical.  It  is 
a  review  of  the  organization  of  the  Church,  in  which  the  facts 
already  exhaustively  explored  in  this  work  are  marshalled  in  a 
most  convincing  manner.  Two  brief  extracts  must  suffice :  "  We 
have  the  Bible  on  our  side;  the  practice  of  the  primitive  church 
sustains  us;  public  opinion  is  our  friend  and  ally;  the  civil 
institutions  of  our  country  lend  us  aid,  and  the  genius  of  American 
freedom  throws  her  protecting  shadow  over  every  friend  of  equal 
representation  and  mutual  rights."  In  conclusion:  "We  resist 
only  when  we  are  oppressed;  as  members  of  the  great  family  of 
our  common  father,  we  ask  to  be  treated  as  his  children,  and  we 
shall  continue  to  ask;  if  tauntingly  requested  by  'the  powers  that 
be  '  to  leave  the  church,  we  reply,  if  you  wish  a  division,  separate 
yourselves;  if  required  to  lay  down  our  arms  (they  are  those  of 
reason  and  scripture),  we  say  to  our  rulers,  'come  and  take  them.'  " 

After  the  appearance  of  "  Timothy  "  to  the  "  Junior  Bishop  " 
in  the  Mutual  Rights,  the  official  addressed,  Bishop  Hedding,  sent 
a  note  to  the  Chairman  of  the  editorial  Committee,  requesting 


MCCAIN E  INVESTIGATES  EPISCOPACY 


111 


the  proper  name  of  Timothy  as  well  as  the  names  of  the  Com- 
mittee, charging  that  Timothy  had  made  "a  misrepresentation 
throughout  of  an  address  I  made  at  the  Pittsburgh  Conference, 
and  a  vile  slander  on  my  character."  It  led  to  a  correspondence 
with  him ;  and  the  free  consent  that  his  name,  Rev.  George  Brown, 
should  be  furnished,  the  whole  of  the  interchange  being  published 
in  the  periodical,  as  well  as  a  number  of  affidavits  from  other 
preachers  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  deposing  that  Timothy's 
recollections  of  the  Address  were  substantially  correct,  and  could 
never  be  made  a  "misrepresentation  "  or  a  "vile  slander."  With 
the  statement  of  this  case  all  that  is  essential  of  Volume  III.  has 
been  furnished.    It  closed  with  the  July  number,  1827. 

The  Christian  Advocate  had  now  a  circulation  of  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  thousand,  and  was  the  vehicle  of  articles  editorial  and 
communicated  against  the  Reform  movement.  The  Mutual 
Rights  had  a  circulation  of  from  fifteen  hundred  to  two  thou- 
sand, and  while  a  number  of  its  subscribers  took  the  Advo- 
cate, but  few  of  the  latter  took  the  Mutual  Rights.  It  was  a 
great  disadvantage,  and  inaugurated  a  period  of  pamphleteering 
on  both  sides  for  wider  dissemination  of  the  views  of  either. 
In  the  winter  of  1825  Alexander  McCaine,  having  become  inter- 
ested in  the  Reform  proceedings,  specially  as  his  attention  was 
directed  to  the  answer  of  the  previous  General  Conference  to  the 
petitions,  determined  to  investigate  the  foundation  of  the  claim 
of  the  Itinerants,  of  which  he  had  been  one  of  the  most  conspicu- 
ous for  thirty  years,  to  exclusive  government  under  an  Episcopal 
regime  derived  directly  from  Mr.  Wesley  as  embodied  in  the 
Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  resulted  in 
the  publication,  in  May,  1827,  of  a  pamphlet  of  seventy-two 
pages  octavo.  Up  to  this  period  he  was  of  the  traditional  opin- 
ion that  in  said  organization  the  superintendents,  Coke  and 
Asbury,  and  the  preachers  summoned  to  the  Christmas  Confer- 
ence, had  followed  specific  instructions  of  Mr.  Wesley.  He 
tells  in  the  Preface  that  "  he  was  resolved,  if  possible,  to  ascer- 
tain the  means  by  which  the  travelling  preachers  had  arrived  at 
these  pretensions,'  and  find  the  authority  which  Mr.  Wesley  had 
given  to  justify  them  in  saying  he  ^recommended  the  episcopal 
mode  of  church  government. '  When  lo !  the  first  discovery  he 
made  was  that  whilst  Mr.  Wesley,  the  testator,  was  yet  living, 
the  title  of  bishop  was  assumed,  and  the  episcopal  mode  of  gov- 
ernment adopted  without  his  recommendation;  and  more,  that 
his  most  solemn  remonstrance  and  entreaty  did  not  avail  in  cans- 


112 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


ing  them  to  relinquish  the  one  or  change  the  other.  Still  pur- 
suing the  investigation,  he  found  that  a  more  extended  research 
served  only  to  increase  his  conviction  that  claims  had  been  set 
up  for  which  there  was  no  warrant;  and  authority  was  said  to 
have  been  given  which  he  believes  can  nowhere  be  found."  This 
states  the  whole  case  of  his  "  History  and  Mystery  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopacy,  etc.,"  ^  and,  as  will  be  seen  later,  it  stands  to-day, 
as  then,  fully  vindicated  as  the  truth  of  history. 

Ke  read  the  results  of  his  investigation  before  the  Baltimore 
Union  Society.  The  discoveries  were  so  compromising  to  the 
leaders  of  1784,  and  the  facts  so  indisputable;  the  entirely  new 
issue  it  would  inject  into  the  lay-representation  measure  upon 
which  the  Reformers  were  now  concentrating;  its  explosion  of 
the  received  tradition  that  AYesley  had  authorized  the  call  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1784,  and  had  sent  over  "a  sketch  of  gov- 
ernment," which  was  precisely  followed  in  the  organization  of 
the  Church;  the  certainty  of  the  intense  excitement  it  would 
create  on  new  lines  of  controversy,  and  the  ground  it  would  fur- 
nish for  judicial  proceedings,  justly  or  unjustly  against  Reform- 
ers, —  gave  the  Society  pause,  so  that  it  took  no  official  action  as 
to  its  publication;  but  individuals  urged  McCaine  to  give  it  to 
the  press.  He  was  deterred,  however,  long  enough  to  address  a 
letter  of  inquiry  to  Bishop  M'Kendree  and  his  four  colleagues, 
under  date  July  1,  1826,  in  which  he  respectfully  asked  for 
information  as  to  the  principal  points  of  his  pamphlet  in  contro- 
version, and  in  it  the  sentence  occurs :  "  I  am  forced  to  believe 
that  the  present  form  of  government  was  surreptitiously  intro- 
duced ;  and  that  it  was  imposed  upon  the  societies  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  Mr.  Wesley's  name.  I  shall  suspend  the  publication  of 
my  piece  to  allow  you  a  reasonable  time  to  reply."  Receiving 
no  answer  from  any  of  them,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they 
were  as  ignorant  of  any  such  information  as  McCaine  himself, 
September  25,  1826,  he  addressed  a  similar  letter  in  purport  to 
six  of  the  oldest  preachers  then  living,  all  of  whom  had  been 
members  of  the  Christmas  Conference.  They  were  Garrettson, 
Green,  Ware,  Reed,  Watters,  and  Dromgoole.    From  most  of 

1  "  The  History  and  Mystery  of  the  Methodist  Episcopacy,  or  a  Glance  at  the 
Institutions  of  the  Church,  as  we  received  them  from  our  fathers,"  by  Alexander 
McCaine,  Elder  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  "He  who  has  no  riglit  to 
the  thing  he  possesses  cannot  prescribe  or  plead  any  lenpcth  of  time  to  make  hU 
possession  lawful."  Barrow.  Baltimore.  Printed  by  Richard  J.  Matdiett,  1S27. 
8vo.  72  pp.  Only  one  edition  was  ever  published,  and  while  a  number  of  copies 
are  in  the  author's  possession  it  is  now  a  rare  pamphlet. 


MCCAINE'S  ''HISTORY  AND  MYSTEliY'' 


118 


these  he  received  answers,  and  they  agreed  that  to  the  best  of 
their  knowledge  they  acted  under  Wesley's  instructions,  thus 
confirming  McCaine's  theory  that  the  system  of  government  they 
enacted  under  this  impression  received  from  Dr.  Coke,  and 
acquiesced  in  by  Asbury,  was  "  imposed  upon  them  " ;  and  they 
acted  accordingly,  never  suspecting  that  they  did  not  possess 
Wesley's  will  and  purpose  as  he  delivered  them  explicitly  to  Dr. 
Coke.  The  merits  of  McCaine's  pamphlet  shall  be  deferred  until 
it  can  be  reviewed  in  juxtaposition  with  Dr.  Emory's  "  Defence 
of  our  Fathers,"  which  was  given  to  the  press  about  six  months 
later. 

It  may  be  seriously  doubted  whether  McCaine's  pamphlet  did 
anything  to  further  the  cause  of  Reform.  Not  a  few  of  the 
leaders  regarded  it  as  inopportune.  It  complicated  the  lay- 
representation  idea,  and  its  statements,  though  never  successfully 
controverted,  fell  like  a  firebrand  in  dry  stubble.  The  pamphlet 
in  its  conclusion  says:  "In  the  preceding  pages,  we  have  spread 
before  our  readers  such  documents  as  were  found  to  be  connected 
with  the  origin  of  our  episcopacy.  We  are  sorry  that  this  expose 
will  not  reflect  much  credit  upon  those  who  were  instrumental  in 
saddling  it  upon  us.  We  are  persuaded  that  the  impartial,  intel- 
ligent, and  pious  of  other  denominations  will  pronounce  our 
episcopacy  to  be  illegitimate;  and  that  the  means  which  were 
used  to  introduce  it  into  the  Church  were  neither  fair  nor  honor- 
able." For  a  caustic  writer  like  McCaine  this  is  a  temperate 
verdict,  and  in  both  its  chief  positions  posterity  has  indorsed  it. 
The  episcopacy  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  "  illegiti- 
mate," in  any  and  every  sense  the  term  conveys,  as  interpreted 
by  the  Roman,  the  Greek  and  the  English  episcopacies.  Therefore 
the  right  to  the  term  as  an  ecclesiastical  exponent  is  anomalous 
and  accommodational  only,  and  to  this  complexion  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  has  come,  not  without  determined  opposition 
from  its  high  church  wing,  as  has  been  already  exposed  in  these 
pages;  and  to  this  complexion  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South  must  ultimately  come.  "  The  means  which  were  used  to 
introduce  it  into  the  Church  were  neither  fair  nor  honorable." 
This  McCaine  demonstrated,  and  Dr.  Emory  utterly  failed  to 
invalidate  the  facts  and  arguments,  as  shall  be  exhibited  in  order. 

It  would  have  been  well  if  McCaine  had  concluded  with  this 
summation,  but  instead  he  ventured  to  outline  a  Plan  for  the 
reconstruction  of  the  old  Church,  in  advance  of  concerted  action 
by  the  Reformers.    It  was  radical  in  its  features  and  adhered  to 

VOL.  II  —  1 


114 


HISTORY  OF  METUODIST  BEFOllM 


the  equal  legislative  rights  of  the  local  preachers.  It  was  eagerly 
seized  upon  by  the  opponents  of  Eeform,  not  as  a  particular 
expression  of  opinion,  but  as  a  general  sentiment,  and  sharply 
criticised  as  impracticable  and  visionary.  Nevertheless,  the 
chief  issues  of  the  pamphlet  were  so  cogently  put  and  so  but- 
tressed by  unquestionable  facts  and  documentary  evidence  that 
it  made  a  profound  impression,  and  won  for  him  the  distinction 
of  being  outlawed  by  his  Church.  Something  must  be  done  to 
neutralize  it.  Subsequent  events  made  it  apparent  that  agree- 
ment between  Dr.  Bond  and  Dr.  Emory  parcelled  out  the  defen- 
sive work.  In  a  few  months  Dr.  Bond's  "  Appeal  to  the 
Methodists,"  etc.,^  made  its  appearance,  and  was  scattered 
broadcast  throughout  the  Church.  In  a  Dedication  to  it  he 
scathingly  reviews  Snethen's  strictures  upon  it,  anticipating  it 
in  the  rumor  that  Dr.  Bond  was  to  "  write  down  Beform  " ;  with 
a  fling  at  Bascom,  who,  in  one  of  his  articles  in  the  Mutual  EightSy 
had  referred  to  Dr.  Bond  "  as  the  chief  officer  of  the  star-chamber 
to  my  Lord  of  Canterbury,"  alleging  that  this  English  court  was 
exclusively  civil  in  its  jurisdiction,  and,  therefore,  the  illustra- 
tion was  impertinent  as  to  ecclesiastical  matters.  It  was  unfor- 
tunate for  Dr.  Bond,  for  Bascom  turned  upon  him  with  such 
indisputable  evidence  that  the  star-chamber  did  take  cognizance 
of  ecclesiastical  matters  as  well,  that  his  competence  to  handle 
historical  facts  was  discounted  seriously.  The  Appeal  was  writ- 
ten in  vigorous  English,  and  was  of  singular  merit,  in  that  it 
must  be  credited  with  all  the  seed-thoughts  and  arguments  that 
have  ever  since  been  reproduced  apologetic  and  defensive  of  the 
mother-church  polity  as  it  was  up  to  1872.  It  is  a  master  mind 
that  can  thus  box  the  whole  compass,  and  anticipate  a  generation 
of  thinkers  on  the  same  side.  Everything  is  here  in  embryo 
that  ever  afterward  appeared  in  General  Conference  reports,  or 
found  expression  through  the  Advocates.  And  more,  there  is  not 
a  sophistry,  a  fallacy,  an  indirection,  a  perversion  of  language, 
an  appeal  to  passion  and  prejudice,  that  escapes  this  zealous  pur- 
veyor of  Bourbon  conservatism;  it  is  exhaustive  of  ingenious 
turns  and  tricks  of  speech.  That  full  justice  may  be  done  him 
the  reader  shall  have  a  synopsis  of  the  pamphlet,  as  the  mere 
statement  of  his  positions  will  be  self-refuting  to  the  impartial 
Christian  investigator,  and  save  a  detail  of  the  several  replies 

1  "  An  Appeal  to  the  Methodists  in  opposition  to  the  Changes  Proposed  in  their 
Church  Government,"  by  Thomas  E.  Bond,  M.D.,  a  local  preacher  of  said  Church. 
Baltimore.   Published  by  Armstrong  &  Plaskitt,  1827.   8vo.   69  pp. 


DB.  bond's  ''APPEAL''  ANALYZED 


115 


which  at  once  were  launched  against  it  by  eminent  Reformers, 
riddling  it  into  shreds. 

A  number  of  opening  pages  are  devoted  to  a  eulogy  upon  the 
early  American  itinerants  and  the  work  they  accomplished:  ten 
preachers  and  a  handful  of  members  in  1773,  and  now,  1827, 
1400  itinerants,  over  3000  local  preachers,  and  300,000  members. 
It  was  a  breezy  showing,  a  "  common  Methodism  "  about  which 
there  was  no  dispute,  as  well  as  the  effectiveness  of  the  missionary 
character  of  the  itinerant  plan.  And  now  comes  his  first  bare  and 
bald  assumption  that  this  is  to  give  place  to  "  a  scheme  founded 
on  abstract  notions  of  natural  rights."  The  scheme  is  not  new, 
he  says;  and,  tricked  out  in  blackest  garb,  O'Kelly  is  held  up 
as  a  warning.  He  plunges  into  the  propositions  and  purposes  of 
the  Reformers,  and  depicts  them  for  the  best  effect  upon  his 
readers.  He  takes  up  the  right,  the  expediency,  and  the  practi- 
cability of  lay-representation.  As  to  the  first,  he  does  not  find 
in  the  Scriptures  "any  form  of  government  for  the  Christian 
church  prescribed,"  carefully  avoiding  any  reference  to  the 
example  found  in  the  New  Testament,  wherein  the  people  are 
first  in  authority  and  always  participants  in  church  polity.  He 
finds  therefore  no  scriptural  right  of  lay-participation.  Neither 
can  he  find  a  natural  right.  "  The  complainants  are  under  no 
government  but  such  as  they  voluntarily  put  themselves  under, 
and  which  they  can  at  any  time  renounce ; "  overlooking  with 
shrewd  purpose  the  essential  difference  between  a  society  and  a 
Church.  A  man  may,  and  perhaps  should,  change  his  relation 
to  society  if  dissatisfied  with  its  methods,  though  the  right  to 
propose  and  secure  different  methods,  if  possible,  cannot  be  denied 
him ;  but  his  church  relation  is  a  divine  obligation,  and  is  not 
voluntary  in  the  same  sense,  nor  may  he  withdraw  from  it  volun- 
tarily. Shinn,  in  his  calm  and  effective  "  Review  of  the  Appeal," 
has  put  this  point  beyond  animadversion :  "  A  man's  obligation 
to  continue  in  the  Church  can  only  be  cancelled  by  the  official  acts 
of  the  Church  taking  away  his  Christian  rights,  in  violation  of 
the  laws  of  heaven.  On  this  condition  only  can  he  have  any  right 
to  withdraw."^    A  few  months  later  Rev.  Francis  Waters,  D.D., 

1  "  Conference  Rights ;  or  Governing  Principles  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,"  etc.,  by  T.  A.  Kerley,  Nashville,  Tenn.  Publishing  House,  M.  E. 
Church,  South.    1898.    12mo.    398  pp.  Cloth. 

This  is  an  investigation  of  Methodist  Episcopacy  along  the  old  lines  in  the 
main,  and  is  an  apparent  attempt  to  invalidate  the  conclusions  of  Rev.  Dr.  Tigert 
in  his  "  Constitutional  History  of  Methodist  Episcopacy  in  the  Church,  South,  and 
a  review  of  the  Hargrove-Kelly  case,"  etc.  Like  nearly  all  Methodist  Episcopal 


116 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


in  a  review  of  a  meeting  of  Methodists  opposed  to  Keform  in 
Baltimore,  among  other  effective  rallies,  says :  "  I  remember  that 
when  my  friend  Dr.  Bond  received  his  license  to  preach  in  the 
district  conference  of  1824,  on  the  question  being  put  to  him  by 
the  chairman,  or  some  member  of  the  conference,  whether  he  was 
satisfied  with  the  discipline  of  the  church,  he  answered  that  he 
was  satisfied  with  it  till  it  could  be  lawfully  altered  —  modified." 
So  this  champion  of  conservatism  proposed  to  become  a  preacher 
in  the  Church  and  stay  in  it  until  its  Discipline  could  be  changed 
to  suit  him ;  but  now  he  informs  the  "  Methodists  "  that  a  man 
if  dissatisfied  has  but  one  thing  he  can  do  —  withdraw. 

He  had  cast  his  Reform  principles  to  the  wind,  and,  like  all 
perverts,  he  is  now  consumed  with  zeal  in  destroying  the  things 
which  once  he  builded.  Xexfc  he  takes  up  expediency,  and, 
remembering  his  own  active  part  in  memorializing  the  General 
Conference  in  1824,  on  this  ground,  he  is  careful  not  to  stultify 
himself  by  now  denying  that  it  is  a  ground  for  innovation;  but 
forthwith  proceeds  to  show  that  it  is  highly  inexpedient,  and 
accepts  the  opportunity  to  criticise  three  mooted  plans  which 
several  Reformers  had,  on  their  individual  responsibility,  sug- 
gested. It  is  not,  of  course,  a  difficult  thing  for  him  to  show 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  either.  He  pictures  in  lurid  colors  the 
electioneering  of  the  membership  for  lay-representatives,  and  the 
limning  is  enough  to  affright  timid  people.  But  that  is  not 
the  worst;  assuming  it  to  be  done  at  last  after  a  practical  inter- 
necine war  of  the  brethren,  how  are  the  expenses  of  such  a  repre- 
sentation to  the  conferences  to  be  raised?  Xow,  he  urges  the 
members  are  voluntary  contributors  to  tlie  support  of  the  Church; 
then,  he  sees  nothing  but  assessment  and  personal  taxation.  It 

historiographers,  Mr.  Kerley  knows  nothing  of  the  class  of  facts  disclosed  in  this 
"  History  of  Methodist  Reform."  Yet  he  does  see  men  as  trees  walking,  stumbles 
upon  the  truth  here  and  there,  and  has  rearranged  for  his  own  logical  purpose  the 
facts  of  history.  This  voluntary  notice  is  made  of  his  work,  but  the  principle  ob- 
ject of  this  citation  is  to  fortify  the  position  marked  with  this  *  from  page  29: 
"  This  voluntary  membership  in  a  society  could  be  dissolved  at  any  time,  for  any 
cause,  without  sin ;  but  when  these  societies  were  merged  into  a  Church,  and  it 
became  to  them  the  visible  expression  of  their  personal  relation  to  Christ,  the 
case  became  quite  otherwise.  Membership  in  such  a  body  is  a  duti/.  This  duty 
carries  with  it  the  right  to  a  voice  in  the  government.  Therefore  Mr.  "Wesley 
could  not  say  to  them,  '  If  you  do  not  like  my  will  as  law  you  can  withdraw.'  It 
is  only  the  majority  of  the  Church  that  can  say  this,  and  then  not  until  the  minor- 
ity have  exhausted  their  legal  rights  to  convince  the  majority.  Neither  can  the 
minority  withdraw  from  the  Church  until  they  have  used  all  proper  efforts, 
T\ithin  the  Church,  to  convince  the  majority.  Duties  and  rights  demand  this 
much  of  all  parties." 


BOND  'S  "  PURSE-STBING  "  ABGUMENT  117 


would  be  a  repetition  of  the  British  Stamp  Act  and  the  tax  upon 
tea,  and  he  shrinks  from  it  in  holy  horror.  He  never  once  men- 
tions the  offsetting  fact  that  such  a  representation  would  obviate 
a  presiding  eldership,  which,  in  the  matter  of  cost,  is  fourfold 
annually  what  the  laymen  would  cost  in  the  item  of  travel. 
Hence  it  is  utterly  impracticable.  Finally,  he  takes  up  McCaine's 
Plan,  already  adverted  to,  and  dissects  it  unsparingly.  Not  a 
word  is  uttered,  however,  in  review  of  the  "  History  and  Mys- 
tery" itself  —  that  is  relegated  to  Dr.  Emory.  McCaine's  Plan 
he  characterizes  as  a  base  and  disgraceful  compromise."  Though 
occurring  in  the  body  of  his  pamphlet  it  is  well  that  reserve  is 
made  of  the  infamous  ''purse-string"  argument,  afterward  so 
called,  but  classically  stated  thus :  "  Our  preachers  are  totally 
dependent  upon  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  laity,  and  we 
therefore  have  over  them  a  positive  and  absolute  control;  for 
whenever  their  flocks  shall  withdraw  their  support,  the  preachers 
will  be  under  the  necessity  of  abandoning  their  present  pastoral 
relation  and  betaking  themselves  to  some  secular  occupation." 
The  reader  will  marvel  at  the  audacity  of  a  professing  Christian 
physician,  in  the  desperation  of  his  cause,  to  adventure  such  an 
argument,  utterly  repugnant  as  it  is  to  the  Scriptures,  in  viola- 
tion of  the  Discipline,  and  repelled  by  every  humanitarian 
instinct.  It  must  be  said  of  it,  that  it  was  disingenuous  and 
insincere,  and  Dr.  Bond  shall  be  witness  to  it;  for,  in  1852,  when 
the  British  Wesley  an  Reformers,  mayhap  getting  their  cue  from 
this  very  "Appeal"  of  Bond's,  resorted  to  the  tactics  of 
"withholding  supplies,"  the  redoubtable  Doctor,  hearing  of  it, 
made  a  vehement  "appeal"  through  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate  to  American  Methodists  for  contributions  to  these 
Wesleyan  preachers,  and  denounced  the  Reformers  for  their 
conduct. 

Consistency  was  not  a  jewel  with  Dr.  Bond.  But  four  months 
before,  February,  1852,  through  the  same  medium,  he  had  repro- 
duced this  purse-string  argument  as  valid.  When  a  man  in  pub- 
lic station  lays  bar^  for  effect  the  weakness  of  his  character,  it  is 
legitimate  to  offer  additional  proof  out  of  his  own  mouth. 

The  concluding  paragraph  of  Dr.  Bond's  "  Appeal "  is  a  pompous 
declaration  of  a  self-opinionated  and  amazingly  conceited  man : 
"  We  will  add  what  we  are  sure  will  give  satisfaction  to  the  lovers 
of  peace,  on  both  sides,  whatever  may  be  their  opinions  of  all  the 
rest  of  our  book,  namely,  that  when  our  local  brethren  among 
the  Reformers  shall  abate  something  of  their  pretensions;  and 


118 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  lay-jReformers  shall  be  satisfied  with  a  representation,  based 
on  the  broad  ground  of  expediency  alone,  without  any  reference 
to  abstract  principles;  we  have  terms  of  pacification  to  propose, 
on  which  we  think  all  parties  may  safely  meet,  and  happily  unite* 
These  terms,  however,  are,  as  yet,  our  own,  having  never  com- 
municated our  views  to  any  member  or  minister  of  the  Church,  of 
either  party;  and  while  Reformers  continue  in  their  present 
temper,  it  will  probably  be  useless  to  propose  anything  which 
does  not  quadrate  with  their  'visionary  theories.'  It  must  not 
be  inferred  that  we  think  any  sort  of  lay  or  local  representation 
necessary.  If  we  propose  anything,  it  will  be  only  for  the  sake 
of  PEACE."  Magnanimous  Dr.  Bond!  Had  he  been  authorized 
by  the  Episcopacy  to  offer  terms?  He  had  or  he  had  not.  If  he 
had,  it  was  a  "  conspiracy  "  indeed,  beside  which  that  which  Bond 
alleged  against  Snethen  and  others,  "  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Church,"  pales.  If  he  had  not,  — and  this  is  the  presumption  in 
the  absence  of  evidence  which  he  never  furnished,  — then  the  top- 
loftiness  of  his  attitude  is  a  spectacle.  But  not  more  so  than 
when,  on  his  election  to  the  editorship  of  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate  he  made  this  deliverance  to  the  Church,  June,  1841: 
''We  are  willing  to  serve  the  Church  as  Editor,  if  necessary,  but 
we  hope  the  good  Lord  and  the  church  will  excuse  us  from  the 
dignity  of  the  episcopacy."  This  and  other  cues  already  fur- 
nished explain  the  otherwise  incomprehensible  conduct  of  a  great 
and  good  man  when  not  pursuing  his  controversial  bent,  and  out- 
side of  the  gladiatorial  arena  in  which  he  so  loved  to  disport 
himself. 


CHAPTER  VII 


Dr.  Bond's  Appeal  stimulating  to  the  Reformers,  and  formed  a  distinct  anti-reform 
party  —  Prominent  Union  Societies  organized  —  Bond's  secretly  manipulated 
plan  for  expulsion  of  the  Reformers ;  particulars  of  it ;  raoralizings  on  the  pros- 
ecuting committee  of  seven  laymen  — Expulsion  machinery  set  in  motion;  its 
morale  — Its  conclusions  foregone  —  Summons  to  Dr.  Jennings,  etc. ;  suspension 
and  expulsion  of  the  eleven  local  preachers  and  the  twenty-two  laymen  of  Bal- 
timore city  —  Indignation  of  the  outside  community  over  it  —  Bond's  "  Narra- 
tive and  Defence  "  issued  to  mollify  the  indignation  —  McCaine's  "  History  and 
Mystery"  made  the  ground  of  charges,  and  himself  expelled  and  outlawed  — 
Ground  of  the  persecution  fairly  stated  by  themselves  —  Alexander  Yearley  as 
a  type  of  the  prosecuting  committee  —  Content  to  pray,  pay,  and  obey  —  Reform- 
ers held  inflexibly  to  a  Principle  and  anti-reformers  to  the  Power,  and  so  could 
not  understand  each  other. 

Dr.  Bond's  Appeal  made  a  strong  impression  upon  the  Church. 
On  the  Keformers  it  was  stimulating  to  greater  exertions,  and 
settled  them  in  their  convictions  that  a  cause  which  could  not  com- 
mand a  better  showing  than  he  had  made  for  it  was  barren  indeed 
of  argumentative  resources,  as  well  as  its  implications  that  re- 
pression by  excommunication  would  soon  be  resorted  to  in  answer 
to  the  logic  of  the  situation.  It  prompted  the  organization  of 
more  Union  Societies  in  various  places.  A  large  meeting  of 
Reformers  for  the  lower  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland  was  held  in 
Newtown  church,  July  25,  1827,  with  representatives  from  that 
whole  section.  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  Waters  led  in  this  movement, 
with  such  men  as  Rev.  David  Watts,  Rev.  Avra  Melvin  of  the 
local  preachers,  John  Williams,  Daniel  Ballard,  William  Quinton, 
William  Smith,  James  White,  and  James  Lawson,  leading  mem- 
bers and  citizens,  who  formed  a  society  and  elected  delegates  to 
the  November  General  Convention.  They  issued  a  masterly  re- 
view of  the  situation  confronting  them,  probably  written  by  Dr. 
Waters.  A  large  meeting  was  also  held  in  Kent  County,  con- 
vened in  the  church  at  Chestertown,  August  11,  and  the  fact  that 
they  met  in  the  church  in  both  these  instances  is  in  proof  that 
the  movement  was  so  influential  that  the  Itinerants  did  not  dare 
to  interpose  through  the  trustees  to  prevent  it.  Such  men  as 
Rev.  Thomas  Walker,  John  Constable,  William  Harris,  and 

119 


120 


UI STORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


William  Copper  furnished  the  officers  for  the  society,  of  great 
social  and  religious  influence.  John  Constable,  William  K. 
Durding,  and  John  Turner  were  sent  as  delegates  to  the  Con- 
vention. "At  a  general  meeting  of  the  male  members  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Pittsburgh,"  held  September  27, 
of  which  Thomas  Cooper  was  Chairman  and  Charles  Avery  Secre- 
tary, in  the  church,  —  for  here  again  the  deed  to  the  property,  as 
well  as  the  dominance  of  Eeformers,  gave  them  control  of  it, — 
resolutions  were  passed  denouncing  the  expulsions  in  Baltimore 
which  had  just  taken  place.  And  on  October  4,  a  general  meet- 
ing of  Reformers  was  held  in  Washington,  Pa.,  for  the  entire 
section  of  West  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  and  a  strong  delegation 
elected  to  the  Convention.  They  were :  Charles  Avery,  a  lead- 
ing local  preacher  and  a  man  of  growing  wealth  and  social  influ- 
ence, whose  after  career  shall  receive  further  notice  in  the  history 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church;  Patrick  Leonard,  William 
Scholey,  John  Bissell,  Samuel  Bushfield,  Henry  Ebert,  William 
Eobinson,  Samuel  Hazlett,  David  M' Masters,  William  Evans, 
Archibald  Hawkins,  Alexander  Sutherland,  John  Strickler,  Wil- 
liam Griffith,  and  Thomas  M'Keever.  In  Centre ville,  Ind.,  a 
Union  Society  was  formed  September  1,  Rev.  Elijah  M'Daniel 
President  and  John  Scott  Secretary.  In  Philadelphia,  despite 
the  unfavorable  effect  of  the  discontinuance  of  the  Wesleyan  Re- 
pository and  the  Local  Preacher  question,  meetings  of  Reformers 
were  held  in  the  court-house,  corner  of  Sixth  and  Chestnut  streets, 
and  they  elected  from  the  Union  Society  such  strong  men  as 
Dr.  Thomas  Dunn,  a  local  preacher  of  more  than  average  ability 
and  wide  influence,  W.  S.  Stockton,  John  S.  Furey,  Rev.  John 
McCloskey,  and  Rev.  A.  A.  Palmer.  In  Cincinnati,  where  the 
Union  Society  w^as  formed  as  early  as  Kovember  17,  1825,  and 
therefore  among  the  earliest,  decided  action  was  taken.  Dr.  Bas- 
sett  says:  "Its  membership  included  most  of  the  leading  influen- 
tial members  of  the  Church.  The  writer  has  in  possession  the 
records  of  the  society,  with  a  list  of  120  names,  all  males,  and 
nearly  all,  he  believes,  heads  of  families.*'  Rev.  George  Brown 
during  his  eldership  quietly,  and  afterward  while  stationed  at 
Steubenville,  0.,  publicly;  Rev.  Henry  B.  Bascom;  the  two 
Henkles,  Saul  and  Moses  M.,  brothers  of  Eli  of  Maryland, — 
all  Reformers,  were  of  the  Western  leaders.  Space  would  fail 
to  enumerate  all  the  Societies  and  make  honorable  mention  of  the 
stanch  men  who  organized  them. 

Another  effect  of  Bond's  Appeal  was  to  concentrate  the  oppo- 


REFORMERS  AND  ANTI-REFORMERS  IN  ARRAY  121 


sition,  under  his  lead,  though  covertly,  that  he  might  better 
manipulate  the  concerted  plan  to  expel  the  Keformers.  He  was 
in  his  element  as  he  "sat  on  the  whirlwind  and  directed  the 
storm  "  — to  employ  a  figure  he  applied  to  Snethen.  He  alleged 
that  the  prosecutions  were  entered  upon  by  the  laity  without 
"any  itinerant  suggestion  or  influence  whatever,"  and  when  he 
was  charged  with  complicity  by  his  former  Reforming  friends, 
he  declared  it  was  "a  personal  insult  without  provocation."  It 
was  a  principal  purpose  of  Dr.  Jennings's  "  Exposition  "  ^  to  prove 
his  absolute  leadership  in  the  expulsions,  and  to  it  any  reader 
wishing  the  indubitable  proof  is  referred;  but  it  is  unnecessary, 
for  Dr.  Bond  subsequently  avowed  himself  the  author  of  "  The 
Narrative  and  Defence  "  and  of  all  the  proceedings  leading  to  the 
expulsions,  and  plumed  himself  on  the  service  he  had  rendered 
the  Church.  It  is  in  order  to  notice  the  steps  taken.  Private 
meetings  were  called  at  Brown's  dwelling  and  Eoszel's  school- 
house  in  East  Baltimore,  and  when  the  scheme  was  matured,  a 
public  meeting  of  the  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
was  called,  after  selecting  seven  laymen  who  were  willing  and 
zealous  to  enter  upon  the  work  of  trial  and  expulsion,  in  the  old 
Baptist  church  at  the  corner  of  Pitt  and  Front  streets,  August  7, 
1827,  after  public  notice  from  all  the  Methodist  pulpits.  It  is 
denominated  "a  very  large  meeting  of  the  male  members  (ex- 
clusive of  the  members  of  the  Union  Society)."  This  brings  into 
view  for  brief  notice  the  third  effect  of  Dr.  Bond's  Appeal.  This 
called  meeting,  under  such  extraordinary  cautions,  drove  nearly 
all  the  neutrals  into  the  ranks  of  the  anti-reformers.  A  large 
number  of  the  class  professed  themselves  convinced  by  it,  as  well 
as  not  a  few  of  the  itinerants,  who  accepted  it  as  a  refuge  while 
bowing  before  the  storm,  so  that  while  a  few  years  before  most 

1  "An  Exposition  of  the  Late  Controversy  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church ; 
of  the  true  objects  of  the  parties  concerned  therein,  and  of  the  proceedings  by 
which  reformers  were  expelled  in  Baltimore,  Cincinnati,  and  other  places,  or  a 
Review  of  the  Methodist  Marjazlne  and  Quarterly  Revieio,  on  Petitions  and  Memo- 
rials." By  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  M.D.  To  which  are  appended  remarks  on  an 
article  entitled  "Asbury's  Life,"  which  appeared  in  the  Methodist  Magazine, 
etc.,  for  January,  1831.  By  a  Layman.  Baltimore.  Published  by  J.  J.  Harrod. 
Printed  by  William  Woody,  No.  6  South  Calvert  Street.  1831.  Large  8vo.  247 
pp.,  boards.  This  volume  is  now  scarce,  but  several  are  in  the  possession  of  the 
writer.  "  By  a  Layman  "  was  Dr.  Jennings  himself,  but  as  the  matter  was  purely 
personal  he  preferred  not  to  obtrude  his  name.  It  thoroughly  exposes  Dr.  Bond's 
immediate  connection  with  the  expulsions,  gives  the  particulars  of  Jennings's 
trial,  and  that  of  his  ten  local  preacher  associates  and  the  twenty-two  laymen 
who  were  simultaneously  expelled  in  the  summer  of  1827  in  Baltimore  city. 


122 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


of  the  Baltimore  Methodists  were  Reformers  by  profession  or  by- 
sympathy,  now  a  large  number  rallied  as  ojoponents  and  gave  the 
active  prosecutors  a  lever  for  future  operations,  under  color  of  a 
lay  uprising  to  purge  the  Church  of  the  "  disaffected  spirits  "  who 
would  not  surrender  principle  to  power. 

Outside  of  Baltimore  and  the  state  of  Maryland,  the  Appeal 
gave  a  large  number  of  the  members  their  first  information  of 
Keform  under  the  specious  showing  of  Dr.  Bond;  for  while 
Shinn's  "Brief  Review,"  in  three  parts,  immediately  followed  its 
publication,  and  Snethen  and  McCaine  met  the  personal  allusions 
to  them  in  its  introduction,  they  served  only  to  fortify  the  un- 
flinching men  who  found  access  to  his  "Brief  Review,"  either 
through  the  Mutual  Rights  or  through  its  after  pamphlet  issue. 
Ten  read  the  Appeal  where  one  read  the  Review.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  did  much  to  arrest  the  progress  of  Reform.  This 
public  meeting  of  August  7  inaugurated  an  anti-reform  party  of 
the  most  pronounced  character.  The  Dorsey  suspension  found 
publication  in  the  secular  papers,  and  it  provoked  a  generous 
sympathy  from  Christians  of  other  denominations  in  Baltimore. 
It  was  the  subject  of  comment  in  religious  circles  generally,  so 
that  the  Bond  party  found  it  absolutely  necessary  that  some 
counteracting  measure  should  be  instituted;  hence  this  public 
meeting  of  the  anti-reform  party.  It  passed  two  resolutions: 
first,  that  "  we  are  firmly  persuaded  the  Baltimore  Annual  Con- 
ference acted  in  the  case  of  the  said  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  with 
becoming  prudence  and  with  great  lenity;  with  a  just  apprehen- 
sion of  their  duty,  both  to  their  offending  brother  and  to  the 
church  of  God;"  second,  "that  the  following  Address  be  pub- 
lished by  the  committee  who  reported  it,  and  that  it  be  distributed 
under  their  direction."  It  was  as  widely  circulated  as  the  Appeal, 
and  bears  the  marks  of  Dr.  Bond's  authorship.  It  covers  seven 
octavo  pages,  and  is  a  specious  presentation  of  all  that  could  be 
said  apologetic  of  that  action.  It  is  a  wonderful  production, 
when  it  is  considered  that  it  is  directed  against  brethren  for 
"circulating  an  improper  periodical  publication,"  in  which  the 
itinerants  were  held  up  to  "public  odium  by  misrepresenting 
both  their  actions  and  their  motives,"  etc. 

In  view  of  these  allegations  it  will  be  well  to  give  a  few 
excerpts  from  this  Christian  (?)  Address.  After  giving  what  it 
claims  to  be  "a  plain,  unvarnished  statement  of  the  transaction," 
it  proceeds  to  justify  the  Conference  action  by  citing  the  slander- 
ous doings  of  the  Reformers.    McCaine's  "  History  and  Mystery  " 


ANTI-REFORH^fEliS  ON  TIIE  DEFENSIVE 


123 


is  characterized  by  these  meek  and  mild-mannered  brethren  in 
these  choice  terms :  "  a  pamphlet  written  by  a  local  preacher,  in 
which  the  whole  system  of  Methodism  is  assailed  with  the  guile 
and  artifice  and  sophistry  of  a  Jesuit,  and  with  all  the  malignity 
of  which  the  human  heart  is  capable,  ...  a  work  which,  for 
malignity  of  purpose,  shrewd  cunning,  misrepresentation  of  facts, 
and  gross  misstatement  of  circumstances,  has  no  parallel  among 
the  productions  of  modern  times,  on  a  similar  subject,  except  the 
far-famed  Cobbett's  'History  of  the  Reformation.'"  Charity  is 
mingled  with  truth  in  that  it  does  make  an  exception  of  Cobbett, 
for  which  no  doubt  McCaine  felt  under  obligations  at  the  time. 
The  dovelike  innocence  of  these  brethren,  echoing  the  words  of 
Dr.  Bond,  in  thus  "  speaking  evil "  of  an  honored  and  reputable 
minister  of  the  Church,  remained  serenely  undisturbed.  They 
say  in  proof:  "The  present  storm  may  be  necessary  to  defecate 
and  purify  the  Church  of  Laodicean  lukewarm  professors.  Let 
us  deeply  humble  ourselves  before  God.  Let  us  watch  unto 
prayer  both  for  ourselves  and  for  our  deluded  brethren."  They 
notice  "  Vindex,"  Henry  B.  Bascom's,  rhetoric  on  the  Dorsey  sus- 
pension, "a  labored  deed  of  hard-earned  infamy,"  as  language 
which  "  outraged  all  decency,  and  applied  to  the  conduct  of  the 
Conference  the  most  abusive  epithets  to  which  malignity  itself 
could  resort."  When  Bascom  read  it,  he  was  surprised,  and 
calmly  analyzed  the  sentence,  word  for  word,  but  failed  to  find, 
as  every  reader  of  to-day  will  also  fail,  how  it  "outraged  all 
decency  of  language  "  or  was  among  the  "  most  abusive  epithets 
to  which  malignity  itself  could  resort."  These  brethren,  who 
kept  such  "a  watch  upon  the  door  of  their  lips,"  as  the  naughty 
Reformers  could  not  and  would  not,  conclude  their  Address  in 
this  pious  strain,  "We  do  most  earnestly  pray  that  the  great 
Head  of  the  Church  may  restore  to  our  afflicted  Zion  all  the 
blessings  of  concord  and  unanimity,  in  both  opinion  and  effort, 
and  that  he  may  preserve  us  in  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  and  the 
bond  of  peace."  This  was  their  method  of  bringing  it  about. 
The  Address  is  signed,  William  Wilkins,  Chairman,  and  John 
Howland,  Secretary. 

This  Address  was  answered  almost  simultaneously  by  the  issue 
of  four  pamphlets  by  distinguished  Reformers :  one  by  Rev.  Dr. 
Francis  Waters,  of  sixteen  octavo  pages,  already  referred  to, 
under  address,  "Somerset  County,  Md.,  September  14,  1827"; 
one  by  Asa  Shinn,  under  title :  "  A  Finishing  Stroke  to  the  high 
claims  of  ecclesiastical  sovereignty  in  reply  to  the  Address  of  a 


124 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


meeting  of  lay  members/'  of  twenty-nine  pages ;  one  by  Dennis  B. 
Dorsey,  of  seventeen  pages,  September  10  5  and  one  by  a  '*  Member 
of  the  Baltimore  Conference,"  of  seven  pages,  as  also  a  letter 
from  Bascom.  The  writer  had  marked  a  number  of  passages  in 
each  of  these  for  citation,  but  forbears  to  do  so.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  —  and  all  the  pamphlets  are  extant  if  a  doubt  be  expressed 
—  that  Shinn  leaves  the  Address  utterly  bare;  Waters  with  the 
touch  of  a  Christian  gentleman  shames  it;  while  Dorsey  refutes 
it  inch  by  inch,  and  makes  it  plain  from  actual  pew  measurement 
that  the  "  very  large  meeting  of  male  members  "  could  not  have 
been  more  than  350,  and  that  witnesses  testify  that  not  more 
than  250  voted  for  the  Address,  though  the  open  dissentients 
were  but  few,  and  this  after  every  effort  to  bring  together  all 
anti-reformers.  The  entire  male  membership  in  Baltimore  was 
perhaps  500  out  of  a  total  less  than  3000.^  A  single  quotation 
from  Bascom  must  suffice,  as  it  furnishes  as  well  a  reason  for  not 
cumbering  these  pages  with  the  elaborate  replies:  "This  Address 
and  the  late  'Appeal'  of  Jesuitical  memory,  are  destined  to  do 
the  cause  of  Be  form  much  good;  the  more  they  write  the  better; 
I  know  no  one  who  has  been  'rebuked'  into  silence,  and  such  as 
have  we  do  not  want.  Let  reformers  be  firm ;  we  will  not  leave 
the  Church;  and  where  we  can  yield,  for  peace'  sake  let  us  do  it; 
let  us  only  resist  where  principle  and  duty  call  for  it."  These 
are  words  of  reason;  but,  alas,  a  stage  had  been  reached  when 
Bef ormers  were  "  not  to  be  reasoned  with,  but  punished  "  —  the 
evil  hour  of  Shinn's  sagacious  prediction.  Universal  history  is 
the  witness  to  Snethen's  axiomatic  truth,  repeated  that  the  reader 
shall  not  forget  its  application  to  every  foot  of  the  ground  now 
contested :  "  Power  combined  with  interest  and  inclination  cannot 
be  controlled  by  logic;  but  even  power  shrinks  from  the  test  of 
logic." 

Meantime  the  combination  formed  by  Dr.  Bond  for  the  expul- 
sion of  Beformers  matured  its  arrangements.  That  it  was  done 
without  conference  and  advice  from  the  officials  of  the  Church 
no  one  will  believe  with  any  knowledge  of  its  polity  and  genius. 
Joseph  Frye  was  Presiding  Elder  of  the  Baltimore  district,  and 
James  M.  Hanson,  at  one  time  listed  with  Beformers  of  the  Emory 
class,  was  preacher  in  charge  of  the  city  station  with  assistants. 
Stephen  G.  Boszel  was  Elder  on  Potomac  district  witliin  easy 
reach.  A  month  after  the  public  meeting,  to  give  color  to  their 
proceedings,  the  machinery  was  set  in  motion.    Jennings  says, 

1  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  IV.  p.  391. 


PERSECUTION  OF  BEFOliMERS  INITIATED  125 


"  The  seven  prosecutors,  the  three  local  preachers  who  afterward 
sat  in  judgment  on  the  cases  of  the  ten  local  preachers,  as  also 
the  committee,  who  in  like  manner  sat  in  judgment  on  the 
twenty-two  members  who  have  been  expelled,  were  all  present 
and  voted,  and  of  course  virtually  pledged  themselves  to  stand 
by  the  prosecution."^  Their  cases  v/ere  prejudged,  so  that 
nothing  was  required  but  to  get  up  charges  and  specifications  in 
accord  with  the  prejudgment.  Hanson  had  written  a  letter  to  the 
venerable  brother,  Thomas  Jacobs  of  Alexandria,  Va.,  a  quiet 
Reformer:  "I  am  disposed  to  view  the  greater  part  of  them 
Reformers]  as  holding  a  relation  to  the  Church,  to  which  in  jus- 
tice and  propriety,  nay,  even  in  charity  itself,  they  are  no  longer 
entitled."  ^    And  this  was  the  position  of  the  judge. 

The  Reformers  were  not  without  intimations  of  the  impending 
proceedings.  August  17,  1827,  the  Reformers,  as  such,  received 
notification  through  the  venerable  President  of  the  Union  Society, 
John  Chappell,  Sr.,  from  the  self-appointed  committee  of  Dr. 
Bond's  selection,  as  follows:  "The  undersigned,  believing  that 
the  members  of  the  Baltimore  Union  Society  have  violated  the 
Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  being  desirous 
of  having  a  friendly  interview  with  them  individually,  previous 
to  instituting  charges  against  them,  if  necessary,  we  respectfully 
request  to  be  furnished  with  the  names  of  the  members  of  said 
Union  Society.  Signed:  George  Earnest,  Jacob  Rodgers,  Isaac 
N.  Toy,  Samuel  Harden,  Alexander  Yearley,  John  'Berry,  Eielder 
Israel  (Members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church)."  It  may 
be  observed  in  passing  that  these  brethren  were  reputable  and 
leading  laymen  of  the  Church.  The  last  was  a  son  of  the  vener- 
able Beal  Israel,  a  member  of  the  "  Corresponding  Committee  "  of 
the  Union  Society,  and  is  in  evidence  how  families  were  divided 
in  sentiment  on  the  subject.  Examine  the  facts,  and  let  pos- 
terity marvel  at  the  uncompromising  hostility  of  the  anti-re- 
formers :  Fielder  Israel,  the  son,  accepts  the  relation  of  Inquisitor 
to  expel  from  the  Church  Beal  Israel,  his  father.  Inquiry  may 
be  made  for  "  natural  affection."  This  Fielder  was  also  the  father 
of  Fielder,  Jr.,  who  subsequently  became  eminent  in  the  ministry 
of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  changed  his  doctrinal  views,  left 
the  Church,  and  died  out  of  its  communion.  It  may  be  well  that 
posterity  may  preserve  for  honor  or  dishonor,  as  the  verdict  of 
the  impartial  readers  of  these  pages  shall  be,  to  give  the  officers 
of  the  Union  Society  for  this  year  1827-28:  President,  John 

1  Jennings's  "Exposition." 


126 


msrOllY  OF  METHODIST  REFOIiM 


Chappell,  Sr.;  Vice-President,  Daniel  E.  Eeese;  Treasurer, 
James  R.  Williams;  Secretary,  Levi  R.  Eeese;  Corresponding 
Committee,  John  J.  Harrod,  Thomas  M'Cormick,  Beal  Israel; 
Editorial  Committee,  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  James  E.  AVilliams, 
William  Kesley,  John  S.  Eeese,  John  Eobb,  John  Chappell, 
Wesley  Starr,  Thomas  Mummy,  John  Kennard,  Ebenezer  Strahen. 
They  had  just  been  elected,  August  1,  and  the  list  published  in 
the  periodical  for  September.  The  modest  request  of  the  prose- 
cuting committee  of  seven  for  "  the  names  of  the  members  "  had 
the  complexion  of  "Greeks  bearing  gifts." 

Eev.  James  E.  Williams  had  an  interview  with  Eielder  Israel, 
requesting  information  as  to  their  purpose  against  Eeformers. 
Israel  was  candid,  and  voiced  the  whole  situation  in  reply:  "You 
and  your  friends  are  members  of  the  Union  Society,  and  say  you 
will  not  leave  it.  You  publish  the  Mutual  Bights,  and  say 
you  will  not  discontinue  that  publication.  You  also  say  that 
you  will  not  withdraw  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
Now  we  are  reduced  to  one  of  two  alternatives :  either  to  let  you 
remain  members  of  the  Church  and  go  on  peacefully  publishing 
the  Mutual  Rights,  by  which  you  agitate  the  church,  or  expel  you. 
We  have  come  to  the  determination  to  take  the  latter  alternative, 
and  expel  you."  ^  It  was  a  fair  and  square  statement  of  the  case 
for  both  sides.  The  Eeformers  claimed  the  right  of  free  publi- 
cation and  free  speech  as  to  the  government  of  the  Church,  as 
members  thereof.  The  anti-reformers,  backed  with  the  power  to 
execute  their  menace,  said,  governmental  Methodism  shall  no 
longer  be  criticised  or  written  against  by  the  members  thereof. 
In  accordance  with  their  plan  to  visit  the  brethren  accused,  two 
of  the  committee,  George  Earnest  and  Fielder  Israel,  waited  upon 
Eev.  Dr.  Jennings,  and  in  an  interview  of  two  hours  endeavored 
to  induce  him  to  abandon  the  Union  Society  and  the  publication 
of  the  Mutual  Rights,  i.e.  surrender  their  whole  cause.  His 
answer  he  well  summed  up :  "  Experience  had  demonstrated  the 
necessity  of  sustaining  the  periodical  by  the  organization  of 
Union  Societies.  Such,  indeed,  had  been  their  effect,  that  we 
were  entirely  satisfied  with  the  prospect  of  success,  and  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  power  party  prove  that  they  were  no  less  appre- 
hensive of  the  ultimate  result.  Were  we  not  bound  by  every 
consideration  of  justice  and  propriety  to  say  to  them  in  reply, 
that  we  considered  their  attempt  at  coercion  in  this  matter  alto- 
gether out  of  the  way?    In  fact,  if  obedience  had  been  the  price 

1  Jennings's  "Exposition." 


PROSECUTING  COMMITTEE  AT  WORK  127 


of  personal  safety,  the  price  would  have  been  considered  too  dear. 
It  is  believed  we  would  not  have  yielded  the  rights  for  which  we 
contended,  under  existing  circumstances,  to  have  saved  our  lives." 
It  is  the  whole  question  again  fully  stated.  Members  of  the 
Committee  of  Seven  waited  on  other  Eeformers,  and  in  some  cases 
did  not  receive  the  courteous  treatment  Dr.  Jennings  accorded  his 
interlocutors.  It  must  be  confessed  it  required  a  higher  degree 
of  Christian  forbearance  and  meekness  than  some  of  them  had 
yet  attained  to  meet  impertinent  advances  and  consider  proposi- 
tions which  demanded  that  they  should  sink,  not  only  their 
Christian  rights,  but  their  American  manhood.  These  prelimi- 
naries over,  as  a  part  of  the  mockery  of  expulsion,  formal  prose- 
cution was  entered  against  them.  It  is  worth  the  mention  that 
not  until  four  months  after,  when  the  Committee  of  Seven,  to 
meet  the  general  indignation  of  the  local  religious  community 
aroused  to  the  pitch  of  inchoate  protest,  joining  that  of  the 
expelled  Eeformers  themselves,  led  by  Dr.  Bond,  prepared  "A 
Narrative  and  Defence  "  ^  of  the  proceedings,  in  which  he  states 
the  only  truthful  allegation  which  could  be  made  against  his 
quondam  friends;  it  is  that  the  Union  Societies  in  the  Church 
*'  incorporated  the  spirit  of  party  in  its  very  constitution."  This 
was  true,  but  it  is  defensive  on  the  only  two  grounds  which  could 
make  it  a  justification  of  expulsion  from  the  visible  Church  of 
God,  namely,  the  immorality  of  the  act  or  its  disciplinary  viola- 
tion. The  first  was  not  hinted  until  the  power  party  found  it 
impossible  to  overcome  the  general  indignation  of  the  outside 
community,  while  the  second  never  was  successfully  accom- 

1  "  A  Narrative  and  Defence  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  in  Baltimore  City  Station  against  certain  Local  Preachers  and  Laymen  of 
said  Church  by  the  persons  who  preferred  and  sustained  the  charges,  to  v/hich  is 
added  an  Appendix  containing  the  Rev.  James  M.  Hanson's  Vindication  of  his 
official  conduct  in  relation  to  the  above  proceedings ;  together  with  other  interest- 
ing documents."  Baltimore.  Published  by  Armstrong  and  Plaskett.  J.  D.  Toy, 
Printer.    1828.    8vo.    135  pp. 

It  purports  to  have  been  written  by  the  Committee  of  Seven,  but  subsequently 
Dr.  Bond,  unwilling  to  lose  the  honor  of  its  authorship,  confessed  that  he  had 
written  it.  It  appeared,  early  in  1828,  or  some  four  months  after  the  expulsions, 
and  the  immediate  occasion  of  its  issuance  was  the  publication  in  the  secular 
papers  of  the  city  of  Dr.  Jennings's  *'  Protest "  against  the  expulsory  proceedings 
in  his  case.  It  excited  the  whole  Christian  community,  the  Presbyterians,  the 
Baptists,  and  the  Lutherans  being  specially  interested  as  exponents  of  religious 
liberty.  One  of  the  leading  physicians  of  the  city,  a  prominent  citizen,  an  unim- 
peachable Christian  gentleman,  and  a  preacher  of  such  popularity  that  crowds 
always  attended  when  he  was  announced,  the  task  Dr.  Bond  set  himself  to  prove 
was  a  difficult  one  —  even  to  prove  as  he  had  averred  that  "  a  man  may  be  a  good 
Christian  but  not  a  good  Methodist.'' 


128 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFOEM 


plished;  Shinn  had  put  an  extinguisher  upon  all  such  attempts 
in  his  parallel  of  the  Union  Societies  with  Wesley's  United 
Societies  within  the  Church  of  England. 

It  has  been  the  prayerful  endeavor  of  the  writer  to  give  an 
impartial  account  of  this  ancient  controversy,  and  to  this  end  he 
has  given  prominence  to  the  statements  of  the  opponents  of 
Reform,  a  method  quite  unprecedented  in  Methodist  controver- 
sial history  heretofore.  In  pursuance  of  this  method,  in  travers- 
ing the  expulsions  in  Baltimore,  typical  of  all  the  others,  and 
these  alike  in  all  the  essential  features,  he  will  cite  from  the 
"  Narrative  and  Defence  "  the  facts  in  the  case.  The  prosecutions 
were  inaugurated  by  the  following  summons  sent  to  Dr.  Jen- 
nings :  — 

Baltimore,  Sept.  8,  1827. 
Dear  Sir  :  You  are  hereby  informed  that  charges  have  been  preferred 
against  you  by  the  following  persons  :  J.  Rodgers,  S.  Harden,  J.  Berry,  I. 
Toy,  A.  Yearley,  G.  Earnest,  and  F.  Israel.  As  it  is  desirable  for  the  satis- 
faction of  all  who  feel  an  interest  in  the  matter,  that  a  hearing  should  be  had 
as  soon  as  practicable,  it  is  hoped  that  Tuesday  evening  next,  at  7  o'clock,  will 
suit  your  convenience. 

Yours  respectfully, 

James  M.  Hanson. 

Dr.  Jennings  wrote  for  a  copy  of  the  charges.  They  were  sent 
on  Monday,  the  lOtli,  one  day  before  the  date  of  trial.  They 
are  as  follows:  "The  Eev.  Samuel  K.Jennings  is  charged  with 
endeavoring  to  sow  dissensions  in  the  society  or  church  in  this 
station  or  city  known  by  the  name  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  with  the  violation  of  the  general  rule  of  the  disci- 
pline of  the  said  church  or  society,  which  prohibits  its  members 
from  doing  harm,  and  requires  them  to  avoid  evil  of  every  kind; 
and  especially  the  violating  that  clause  of  said  general  rule  which 
prohibits  speaking  evil  of  ministers."  The  specifications  are 
three  in  number,  and  are  briefly  stated:  '"'Ist.  Becoming  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Union  Society.  2d.  Directly  or  indirectly  supporting 
the  Mutual  Rights,  and  the  evils  consequent  upon  its  publication. 
3d.  Approving  the  'History  and  Mystery  '  written  by  Alexander 
]\rcCaine,  which  contains  assertions  made  'without  proper  proof 
or  just  foundation,  calculated  to  disgrace  and  bring  reproach  upon 
the  Church '  and  to  'produce,  increase,  and  heighten  the  disagree- 
ments, strife,  contention,  and  breach  of  union  alluded  to  in  the 
second  specification.'  "  The  proofs  are  sundry  citations  from  the 
Mutual  Rights,  by  Snethen,  Shinn,  Brown,  Dorsey,  McCaine, 
Bascom,  W.  W.  Hill,  and  Joseph  Walker  of  Alabama.    In  addi- 


WITNESS  OF  ANTI-REFORMERS 


129 


tion  the  "  History  and  Mystery  "  as  an  entire  pamphlet  was  cited, 
"  with  such  other  documentary  or  oral  proof  as  the  undersigned 
may  deem  expedient  to  exhibit  or  produce."  Signed  by  the  Com- 
mittee of  Seven. 

Jennings  demurred  to  the  shortness  of  the  time  allowed  him, 
to  which  the  preacher  in  charge,  James  M.  Hanson,  answered  by 
expressing  astonishment  that  he  should  want  further  time,  as  the 
evidence  was  all  published  to  the  world  and  speaks  for  itself. 
Five  days  of  grace  were  granted.  Citing  again  from  the  "  Narra- 
tive and  Defence,"  "the  preacher  in  charge  caused  each  of  the 
persons  accused  to  be  furnished  with  a  copy  of  the  charges 
and  specifications,  and  notified  them  of  the  time  of  their  trial 
severally."  They  were  sent  to  the  following  eleven  local 
preachers,  a  number  of  whom  were  ordained  ministers,  and  one, 
McCaine,  an  itinerant  of  thirty  years'  standing.  Appended  to 
the  name  of  each  local  preacher  will  be  found  the  years  of  his 
membership  in  the  Church:  S.  K.  Jennings,  30;  A.  McCaine, 
30;  J.  C.  French,  20;  J.R.Williams,  27;  D.  E.  Reese,  33;  J. 
Valiant,  27;  W.  Kesley,  26;  T.  M'Cormick,  16;  L.  J.  Cox,  19; 
J.  S.Reese,  17;  R.T.Boyd,  11.  Twenty-five  laymen  were  cited 
as  follows:  W.  J.  Chappell,  46;  J.  Kennard,  23;  J.  J.  Harrod, 
20;  T.  Mummy,  16;  E.  Strahen,  8;  A.  Emmerson,  25;  L.  Thomas, 
26;  L.  R.  Reese,  4;  T.  Patterson,  16;  J.  Hawkins,  12;  J.  P. 
Howard,  10;  W.  Starr,  20;  J.  P.  Paul,  15;  J.  R.  Foreman,  19; 
W.  K.  Boyle,  25;  S.  Jarrett,  30;  T.  Jarrett,  32;  S.  Guest,  14; 
G.  B.  Northman,  15;  S.  Krebs,  22;  S.  Thompson,  12;  T.  Par- 
sons, 12;  J.  Coates  (acquitted),  J.  Stinchcomb  (acquitted),  and 
J.  Comegys  (acquitted).  It  will  be  seen  that  the  drag-net  had 
included  three  more  than  could  be  inculpated  even  under  such 
charges  as  were  laid. 

Realizing  how  serious  the  business  was,  as  these  names  are 
inclusive  of  the  leading  preachers,  and  the  laymen  of  as  high 
standing  in  every  sense  as  the  Committee  of  Seven,  pause  was 
had  under  the  diplomacy  of  Dr.  Bond,  and  another  effort  made 
to  coerce  the  recalcitrants  into  measures.  The  "  Narrative  "  says : 
"Dr.  Bond,  who  had  not  yet  relinquished  the  hope  that  some 
conciliatory  course  might  be  devised,  .  .  .  ventured  alone  and 
without  our  knowledge  upon  the  business  of  negotiation.  Hav- 
ing a  particular  intimacy  with  Rev.  J.  S.  Reese,  and  reposing 
great  confidence  in  his  understanding,  piety,  and  prudence,  the 
doctor  communicated  his  intentions  to  him."  The  reader  will 
mark  that  Dr.  Bond  is  the  writer  of  this  account.    His  proposal 

VOL.  II  —  K 


130  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


to  Dr.  Reese  was  that  after  the  Reformers  had  held  their  an- 
nounced Convention  in  Xovember  proximo,  that  the  Union 
Societies  should  be  dissolved,  and  the  Mutual  Eights,  if  continued 
at  all,  to  be  so  only  under  persons  chosen  mutually  by  the  tivo 
parties.  It  was  made  September  15,  referred  to  the  Union  Society 
by  Dr.  Reese,  and  action  taken  that  no  response  should  be  made. 
The  reasons  are  obvious  enough.  The  trials  proceeded  in  order 
of  time  appointed.  Dr.  Jennings  being  first.  The  committee 
selected  to  try  the  local  preachers,  says  the  "Narrative,"  were, 
John  W.  Harris,  Samuel  Williams,  and  Thomas  Bassford.  These 
three  were  good  men,  but  of  very  inferior  talent  and  reputation 
as  preachers.  Wherefore  then  chosen?  It  is  indisputable  that 
the  brains  and  piety  of  the  Baltimore  locality  were,  with  the 
exception  of  Dr.  Bond,  listed  with  the  Reformers.  McCaine's 
case  was  made  an  exception;  two  were  taken  from  Baltimore 
County,  and  one  from  East  Baltimore  station,  namely.  Rev. 
Samuel  Gore,  Nicholas  Harden,  and  Edward  Hall.  The  com- 
mittee to  try  the  lay-members  were :  Baltzer  SchaefPer,  Thomas 
Kelso,  Alexander  Russell,  Thomas  Armstrong,  John  W.  Berry, 
and  William  McConkey,  Jr.  They  were  good  men  and  of  as  high 
standing  as  the  Committee  of  Seven.  Dr.  Jennings  has  been  made 
a  typical  case.  The  Mutual  Rights  for  this  period,  and  Jennings's 
"Exposition"  in  particular,  cover  the  elaborate  defence  he  made 
under  three  separate  protests,  analyzing  the  charges,  dissecting 
the  specifications,  and  nullifying  the  proofs,  and  to  these  sources 
the  reader  must  be  referred  who  wishes  to  peruse  the  literature 
of  the  subject.  All  the  protests  and  exceptions  were  overruled 
by  the  chair,  James  M.  Hanson.  No  one  can  carefully  peruse 
the  testimony  and  the  proceedings  of  trial  and  not  be  convinced 
that  the  verdict  was  foregone.  He  was  found  guilty  and  sus- 
pended from  his  ministerial  office.  The  same  result  followed  in 
the  cases  of  the  other  nine  preachers.  McCaine's  separate  trial 
resulted  like  the  others,  and  was  conducted  in  his  absence,  as  he 
refused  to  recognize  the  court  and  jury,  except  that  no  condition 
was  annexed  to  his  case;  he  was  outlawed,  no  room  being  allov/ed 
him  for  repentance.  The  laymen  were  similarl}'  disposed  of  —  a 
common  expulsion.  All  the  papers  in  the  case  of  the  venerable 
President  of  the  Union  Society,  John  Chappell,  Sr.,  are  in  my 
possession  and  accessible  as  ecclesiastical  curiosities  in  this  da}' . 
A  number  of  the  suspended  and  expelled  published  individual 
accounts  of  their  trials,  and  each  is  a  masterful  pamphlet,  that 
of  Daniel  E.  Reese  already  referred  to  being  the  most  searching 


EXPULSION  OF  BALTIMORE  REFORMERS  131 


and  elaborate;  William  Kesley,  James  R.  Williams,  and  Levi  K. 
Reese  being  of  the  number. 

McCaine's  "  History  and  Mystery  "  was  specially  dwelt  upon 
in  the  trials,  and  with  reason.  Its  disclosures  were  startling  to 
the  Methodists  wherever  they  became  known.  He  had  trodden 
a  new  path,  and  the  discoveries  made  in  the  esoteric  of  Methodist 
history  were  such  as  to  make  his  euphonious  title  pertinent  — 
Mystery  as  well  as  History.  As  already  intimated,  even  the 
Reformers  were  confronted  in  it  with  a  new  phase,  and  they  re- 
ceived it  cautiously.  The  "  Narrative  and  Defence  "  says  that, 
when  Dr.  Jennings  was  plied  with  it  as  a  factor  in  Reform,  he 
answered,  "  he  thought  the  publication  of  it  at  this  time  rather  a 
fortunate  circumstance,  as  an  opportunity  was  thereby  afforded 
to  the  Church  to  rebut  the  charges  by  proper  evidence,  if  it  could 
he  done,  before  the  time  should  pass  in  which  the  evidence  could 
be  collected."  The  italicized  words  are  Dr.  Bond's.  This  was 
the  justification  for  its  publication  at  the  time,  as  otherwise  it 
would  have  been  better  for  the  cause  of  Reform  if  it  had  not  been 
handicapped  with  the  issue  it  raised.  It  shall  be  shown  that  it 
never  has  been  disproved,  and  thus  one  of  the  strongest  points 
of  evidence  on  which  the  Baltimore  Reformers  were  expelled 
remains  unrefuted.  It  must  be  conceded  that  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  prosecutors  there  was  enough  in  its  unqualified  and 
unmincing  declarations,  as  well  as  in  the  arguments  and  affirma- 
tions, if  not  in  the  language  of  some  of  the  contributions  to  the 
Mutual  Rights,  to  posit  a  charge  of  calumnious  writing  as  they 
construed  it.^  But  this  alone,  perhaps,  would  have  been  con- 
doned,—  indeed,  the  conciliatory  approaches  are  in  proof,  —  but 

1  Perfect  fairness  to  the  author  of  the  '*  Narrative  and  Defence,"  as  well  as 
the  prosecuting  committee,  demands  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  state  their 
case  from  their  own  point  of  view,  so  citation  is  made  from  the  pamphlet  to  this 
effect:  "Our  complaint  against  the  members  of  the  Union  Society  is  not  on  ac- 
count of  their  opinions  on  the  subject  of  church  government,  nor  for  the  honest 
and  candid  expression  of  their  opinions,  but  for  the  misrepresentation  of  the  mo- 
tives and  conduct  of  our  ministers,  and  for  endeavoring  to  sow  dissensions  in  our 
Church  by  inveighing  against  the  discipline.  Nor  do  we  understand  by  '  inveigh- 
ing,' the  temperate  expression  of  opinion,  or  calm  and  dispassionate  argument  in 
favor  of  changing  any  part  of  our  discipline,  but  we  understand  it  to  mean  '  ve- 
hement railing,'  '  abusive  censure,'  or  '  reproach.'  .  .  .  We  repeat  then  that  it  is 
not  for  being  reformers  themselves,  or  for  endeavoring  to  make  reformers  of 
others,  nor  for  uttering  and  publishing  their  opinions  on  the  subject  of  reform, 
that  we  complain  of  the  members  of  the  Union  Society,  but  we  complain  that 
they  have  employed  against  their  brethren  in  the  ministry,  and  against  the  disci- 
pline of  the  Church,  the  severest  invectives  and  the  most  vehement  railings.  They 
have  impugned  the  motives  of  our  venerable  bishops  and  our  itinerant  ministers 
with  unrelenting  severity,  and  accused  them  without  a  shadow  of  proof  with  con- 


132 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  HE  FORM 


the  Eeformers  were  contumacious  as  well,  and  as  they  could  not 
be  humbled  or  broken,  figments  of  church  law  were  evoked,  and 
they  were  excommunicated.  Jennings's  subsequent  analysis  of 
the  charges  and  specifications  in  syllogistic  form  in  his  "Exposi- 
tion "  clearly  establishes  this  conclusion;  treating  of  one,  namely, 
"the  Union  Society  is  in  opposition  to  the  discipline,  in  whole 
or  in  part,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church."  In  the  "  'Narra- 
tive and  Defence '  they  say,  'the  Union  Society  is  a  body  not 
recognized  by  the  discipline.'  It  follows  in  course,  then,  not 
prohibited.  And  yet  they  seem  persuaded  that  Union  Societies 
must  be  in  opposition  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  if  not 
in  ivhole,  at  any  event  in  part.  They  were  like  Peter  in  Dean 
Swift's  tale  of  the  tub.  If  the  necessary  opposition  could  not  be 
established  by  any  known  and  promulgated  rule,  they  could  make 
it  out  by  some  rule  of  construction.  It  was  all  in  their  own 
hands,  and  they  did  make  it  out.^'  The  candid  reader,  after  this 
specimen  of  the  anti-reformers'  position  and  the  pulverizing  logic 
of  the  Keformers  of  the  Jennings,  McCaine,  Snethen,  Shinn, 
Bascom  class,  will  excuse  the  writer  for  not  consuming  precious 
space  with  more  of  the  kindred  literature  of  the  anti-reform 
power  party.  They  undoubtedly  satisfied  themselves  that  they 
were  "  doing  God  service  "  in  general,  and  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  in  particular. 

Bond's  Appeal  and  his  "Narrative  and  Defence "  satisfied  many 
others.  The  Methodist  Magazine  and  the  Christian  Advocate  in- 
dulged in  laudatory  commendations,  and  the  educating  force  of 
all  the  publications  combined  turned  the  tide  of  influence  against 
Eeform.  And  yet  it  was  strongly  intrenched  in  the  Church,  and 
justly  excited  the  apprehensions  of  the  adherents  of  the  old  regime 
that,  if  such  progress  had  been  made  in  seven  years,  seven  more 
would  find  them  in  possession  of  an  utterly  unmanageable  majority 

duct  which  would  render  men  odious,  even  in  civil  society,  and  how  much  more 
in  the  Church  of  God?  They  represent  them  to  the  world  as  usurpers,  as  tyrants 
aiul  despots,  '  lording  it  over  God's  heritage,'  as  exercising  an  arbitrary  author- 
ity, which  was  at  first '  swreptUloushj  '  obtained,  and  which  has  been  perpetuated 
by  printiug  and  publishing  a  falsehood  in  the  preface  to  our  book  of  discipline, 
and  by  forbidding  the  people  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  the  affair."  These  alle- 
gations they  believed  were  proven  by  the  extracts  submitted  from  the  Reform 
publications,  and  specially  it  will  be  noted  from  McCaine's  pamphlet.  Ou  the 
trials,  discussiou,  however,  was  strictly  ruled  out  of  order  on  the  extracts  so  fur- 
nished, and  as  to  McCaine's  incisive  allegations  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  fully 
sustained  as  to  the  main  points  alluded  to  in  the  summation  just  given  from  the 
"  Narrative  and  Defence ;  "  but  at  this  stage  of  the  matter  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  he  was  esteemed  a  vile  traducer. 


FURTHER  WITNESS  OF  ANTI-REFORMERS  183 


of  the  whole  Church.  Up  to  December,  1827,  twenty-four  Union 
Societies  had  been  formed  in  twelve  states  of  the  American  Union. 
"  In  those  Societies  were  to  be  found  some  of  the  most  distin- 
guished ministers  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  point  of 
piety,  talent,  and  influence.  But  no  character  was  too  fair,  at 
this  stage  of  the  reform  history,  not  to  be  attacked  and  aspersed 
by  the  votaries  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Even  the 
much  honored  Bascom  and  his  colaborers  .  .  .  were  denounced  by 
the  prosecuting  committee  as  a  *  reckless  assailant  that  transcends 
all  decency  of  invective.'  To  be  in  favor  of  Reform,  or  of 
Mutual  Bights,  was  regarded  by  the  advocates  of  the  old  order 
of  things  as  an  offence  calling  for  expulsion  from  the  Church."^ 
One  other  excusatory  phase  of  the  anti-reform  brethren  must 
be  considered  in  making  up  a  judgment  as  to  their  persecuting 
proceedings  against  brethren  formerly  beloved  and  even  members 
of  their  own  households.  As  noted,  they  reached  the  conclusion 
that  the  evidence  was  sufficient,  and  it  is  a  part  of  the  rationale 
that  they  were  mentally  and  morally  of  a  type  easy  to  reach  such 
a  conclusion.  Alexander  Yearley,  a  reputable  merchant  and 
a  leading  official  in  the  Church,  next  to  Fielder  Israel,  who  was 
the  spokesman  of  the  Committee  of  Seven,  furnishes  the  keynote 
of  their  underlying  character.  At  the  trial  of  Daniel  E.  Eeese 
he  ventured  at  its  conclusion  to  make  this  deliverance :  "  I  have 
been  a  Methodist  ever  since  the  days  of  Wesley,  and  have  lived 
happy  under  the  Discipline  which  our  brother  has  thought  so 
despotic,  until  this  political  scheme  of  liberty  (a  liberty  to  do 
wrong,  I  suppose)  was  got  up ;  I  thank  God  for  the  privilege  of 
belonging  to  a  church  which  brings  us  up  to  a  strict  discipline. 
It  is  strange  to  me  that  brethren  make  such  a  hue  and  cry  about 
right.  They  have  as  much  right  to  take  up  arms  against  the 
state,  and  consider  themselves  good  citizens,  as  to  rise  up  against 
the  Discipline  of  the  Church,  as  they  have  done,  and  call  them- 
selves good  Methodists."  ^  The  inconsequent  reasoning  need  not 
be  considered;  it  is  patent  and  of  the  staple  of  all  the  opposing 
views  of  Reform  fairly  stated.  And  as  to  discipline,  moral  dis- 
cipline, no  society  can  exist  without  it,  and  no  one  can  object  to 
its  exercise,  when  the  laws  under  which  it  is  done  are  made  with 
the  consent  of  those  who  are  to  be  the  subjects  of  discipline.  No 
Reformer  was  ever  wild  enough  in  his  theories  to  question  it. 
But  this  is  evidently  not  brother  Yearley 's  idea.    Snethen  hap- 

1  Paris's  "History,"  pp.  167,  168. 

2  Rev.  D.  E.  Reese's  "  Protests,"  etc.,  p.  16.   16  pp.  1827. 


134 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


pily  satirizes  his  meaning :  "  It  is  said  that  when  a  Chinese  is 
punished  by  a  Mandarin,  he  returns  his  most  humble  and  grateful 
acknowledgements  to  that  high  officer  for  the  fatherly  care  he 
takes  of  his  education.  The  law,  it  is  presumed,  obliged  him  to 
do  so. "  Brother  Yearley  had  "  lived  happy  under  the  Discipline, " 
and  many  thousands  more  then  and  since.  He  had  and  they  have 
practised  without  fault  the  layman's  rights  under  it, —  pray,  pay, 
and  obey.  The  administration  to  such  is  an  easy  yoke;  with  the 
law  they  have  had  little  concern.  And  it  must  be  confessed 
that  there  is  a  large  class  of  people  for  whom  such  a  system  is 
best  as  a  controlling  force.  They  are  "  happy  under  it " ;  what 
more  concern?  Converted  at  the  Church  altars  in  youth  or  early 
manhood,  the  doctrines  of  free  grace  and  the  means  of  spiritual 
growth  absorbed  their  attention,  while  on  their  reception  they 
had  affirmatively  answered  the  question :  "  Will  you  cheerfully  be 
governed  by  the  rules  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church?  "  not 
once  in  fifty  cases  knowing  what  they  were  and  are.  Adminis- 
tration is  easy  while  implicit  obedience  continues.  And  there  is 
no  criticism  of  all  this  method.  The  Reformers  made  no  such 
issue  in  1820-30,  though  by  the  anti-reformers  it  was  charged 
that  it  was  the  only  issue  in  fact.  What  they  claimed  was  the 
right  to  examine  the  Discipline,  the  law  of  the  Church,  to  consult, 
to  express  opinions,  to  publish  them,  and  seek  by  petition  and 
personal  combination  to  effect  changes  which  they  as  conscien- 
tiously believed  would  be  to  the  benefit  of  the  Church  as  their 
opponents  believed  would  be  to  its  injury.  The  only  difference 
between  them  and  the  respective  situations  was :  the  Reformers 
held  inflexibly  to  the  Principle ;  the  anti-reformers  held  inflexibly 
to  the  Power,  and  exercised  it.  They  did  not  and  could  not  com- 
prehend each  other.  Brother  Yearley  said :  "  It  is  strange  to  me 
that  brethren  make  such  a  hue  and  cry  about  right."  He  never 
felt  any  disposition  to  inquire  into  his  rights,  and  as  to  oppres- 
sion and  deprivation,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  kind.  A  dog 
chained  under  his  master's  wagon  does  not  know  that  he  is 
chained  so  long  as  he  keeps  pace  with  the  horses.  But  let  him 
fag  or  pull  back,  and  he  gets  a  hint  of  his  true  condition.  And 
thus  is  disclosed  the  practical  philosophy  of  this  ancient  Metho- 
dist controversy,  with  the  one  hundred  years  of  disaffections, 
discussions,  expulsions,  secessions,  resulting  in  numerous  excised 
branches  of  the  common  Wesleyan  vine,  the  direct  result  of 
entailed  Paternalism  in  its  polity,  which  have  made  a  track  of 
history  such  as  these  volumes  trace. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


Bascom's  expose  of  the  threatened  dissolution  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  as  a 
menace  to  its  Reformers  —  The  expulsions  lead  to  more  Union  Societies  far  and 
near  — The  General  Convention  of  Reformers  in  Baltimore  November  15, 1827; 
roster  of  members ;  principal  business ;  Memorial  to  the  ensuing  General  Con- 
ference and  an  Address  to  the  general  Church  ;  nature  of  both  proceedings  set 
forth  —  Dr.  Bond  calls  a  halt  of  expulsions  covertly;  the  Dr.  Green  plot  his 
invention  ;  its  character  and  failure  —  Meeting  of  Reform  Methodists  to  offset 
Dr.  Bond's  meeting ;  what  it  did ;  the  '*  moral  discipline  "  feint  —  The  Baltimore 
District  Conference  meets  to  hear  the  appeal  of  the  suspended  local  preachers ; 
how  it  was  manipulated  by  Dr.  Bond  by  the  votes  of  colored  members  (non- 
voters  under  the  Discipline  in  Maryland) ;  full  history  of  this  infamous  step  — 
The  immorality  question  considered. 

During  the  summer  and  early  fall  of  1827  pamphlet  after 
pamphlet  appeared,  and  meeting  after  meeting  of  Union  Societies 
was  held,  as  well  as  public  meetings  of  members  of  the  Church, 
in  various  places  favorable  to  Reform,  and  in  protest  of  the  sus- 
pension of  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  and  of  the  eleven  local  preachers, 
and  the  expulsion  of  the  twenty-two  laymen  in  Baltimore.  Such 
was  the  disaffection  in  Pittsburgh  and  Washington,  Pa.,  as  well 
as  other  points,  that  "Plain  Dealer,"  H.  B.  Bascom,  advised  the 
Reformers  through  the  periodical,  in  October,  1827  (see  Vol. 
IV.  p.  91),  that  "there  is  a  measure  in  contemplation  which  I 
think  proper  to  make  known,  —  it  comes  from  one  of  our  bishops 
and  the  witnesses  are  eight  or  ten  in  number,  —  it  is  a  determina- 
tion to  dissolve  the  Hittsburgh  Annual  Conference,  at  the  next  Gen- 
eral Conference,  should  its  members  persist  in  their  attachment 
to  the  principles  of  reform.  Now,  in  my  judgment,  there  is  more 
want  of  principle,  more  deliberate  cruelty  in  this  hard-hearted, 
unjustifiable  measure  of  oppression  than  all  the  petty  deeds  of 
persecution  with  which  our  modern  journals  have  been  stained. 
Merciful  God!  and  are  these  the  only  weapons  Christian  bishops 
and  their  ministerial  dependants  can  use  to  exterminate  error! 
I  heard  it  with  regret,  I  write  it  with  sorrow ;  but  it  is  due  to 
the  Methodist  public  that  it  should  be  known.  The  territory 
embraced  by  the  Pittsburgh  Annual  Conference  supports  a  popu- 
lation of  several  hundred  thousand,  —  there  are  nearly  ninety 

135 


136 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


travelling  preachers  belonging  to  the  conference,  and  some  of 
them  inferior  to  none  in  the  United  States,  —  but  all  this  avails 
nothing,  reform  must  go  down,  right  or  wrong,  and  hence  the 
meditated  blow  at  the  very  existence  of  the  conference.  ...  If 
private  character  must  be  assailed  in  this  controversy,  let  the 
inquisition  extend  to  a  few  blustering,  but  ignorant  dupes  of  the 
artful  and  designing  in  your  city  [Baltimore],  and  it  will  be  found 
that  they  are  not  quite  as  invulnerable  as  they  have  imagined. 
Should  justice  and  humanity  compel  me  to  engage  in  this  busi- 
ness, I  shall  undertake  nothing  but  what  I  can  prove  in  courts  of 
law,  civil  or  ecclesiastical."  Suffice  it  to  say  that  this  extreme 
measure  was  abandoned,  if  ever  more  seriously  entertained  than 
as  a  menace  of  terror.^ 

Dr.  John  Emory,  assistant  Book  Agent  in  New  York  and  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  Methodist  Magazine,  announced  his  purpose 
to  reply  to  McCaine's  "History  and  ^[ystery."  Care  was  taken 
that  Reformers  removing  to  Baltimore  should  be  excluded,  as  was 
the  case  with  John  Gephart,  who,  with  a  clean  certificate  and  the 
indorsement  of  his  leader,  came  to  the  city  from  Cumberland, 
Md.,  and  was  refused  admission  by  Hanson  on  the  sole  ground 
that  he  was  a  subscriber  to  the  Mutual  Rights.  (See  Vol.  IV. 
pp.  118-122.)  A  meeting  was  called  at  Watters's  meeting-house 
in  Harford  County,  Md.,  Eev.  Benjamin  Richardson  (local). 
Chairman,  and  W.  D.  Lee,  Secretary,  who  denounced  the  suspen- 
sion of  Dorsey  and  formed  a  Union  Society.  A  large  meeting  of 
members  of  Norfolk  and  Princess  Anne,  Va.,  churches  was  held 
in  the  Baptist  church  in  Norfolk,  November  2,  composed  of  such 
men  as  Rev.  John  French  and  Rev.  Thomas  Blunt,  Seth  Foster, 
and  J.  J.  Burroughs.  They  passed  resolutions  of  sympathy  with 
the  suspended  and  expelled,  and  sent  delegates  to  the  impending 
Reform  Convention.  In  New  Orleans,  La.,  a  meeting  of  male 
members  was  held  in  Gravier  Street  church,  October  9,  and 
formed  a  Union  Society;  the  officers  were  John  Allison,  Patrick 
Thomason,  F.  Reynolds,  W.  M.  Goodrich,  and  Wm.  N.  Wallace. 
The  associated  friends  of  Reform  in  Philadelphia  assembled 
November  14,  with  Dr.  Isaac  James,  Chairman,  and  William 
Whiteside,  Secretary,  and  placed  themselves  on  record.  "  Neale," 
H.  B.  Bascom,  published  in  the  periodical  a  paper  of  eight  pages, 
"A  Plea  for  Reform,"  of  great  strength.  In  Louisville,  Ky.,  a 
meeting  of  local  preachers  and  members  was  held,  July  28,  and 
a  Union  Society  formed;  the  officers  and  leaders  were  James  F. 

1  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  p.  163.    The  Bishop  was  Enoch  George. 


MANY  ''UNION  SOCIETIES''  NOW  FORMED  137 


Overstreet,  Eev,  James  Ward,  W.  S.  Spurrier,  James  Harrison, 
Kev.  Philip  W.  Taylor,  Rev.  Matthew  Nelson,  Samuel  Dickin- 
son, Mann  Butler,  Hooper  Evans,  Rev.  James  Hutchinson, 
Henry  C.  Dorsey,  and  John  D.  Locke.  In  Burlington,  Vt.,  a 
Society  was  formed  November  24,  with  Nathaniel  Gage,  Presi- 
dent, Truman  Seymour,  Secretary,  Justis  Byington,  Luther 
Chamberland,  and  Daniel  Norton,  with  the  officers,  Correspond- 
ing Committee.  At  Greenfield,  0.,  William  Hughey  notifies  the 
Reformers  of  the  organization  of  a  Society,  October  11.  Thus, 
in  the  teeth  of  expulsions  and  provoked  by  them,  the  movement 
continued  to  spread ;  but  it  will  be  seen  that  the  unequal  contest, 
following  all  history,  ended  in  the  triumph  of  power  —  under  the 
crucial  test  of  a  new  organization,  without  property  and  without 
cooperation,  except  from  the  fire-tried  and  true,  many  honest 
sympathizers  fading  away  when  it  came  to  sundering  the  religious 
and  social  and  family  ties  that  held  them  to  the  Church  of  their 
birth  and  education  and  salvation. 

In  pursuance  of  the  call  a  General  Convention  of  Reformers 
was  held  in  Baltimore  in  the  Lutheran  church  on  Lexington 
Street  near  Paca,  November  15,  1827.  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen 
was  made  temporary  Chairman,  and  Gideon  Davis,  Secretary. 
The  following  brethren  it  was  found  had  been  appointed,  or 
elected,  as  delegates :  *  — 

Ohio 


Rev.  Archibald  Hawkins  i 
Rev.  Moses  M.  Henkle  i 
Rev.  David  McMasters  2 
Rev.  James  Towler  2 
Rev.  Daniel  Inskeep 
Rev.  Tiiomas  Scott 
Rev.  Evert  Richman  2 
Dr.  Shadracli  Bostwick  2 
Stephen  B.  Cleaveland^ 


William  Disney  ^ 
William  B.  Evans 
Alexander  Sutherland 
John  Strickler 
William  Griffith 
Thomas  McEver 
Dr.  James  T.  Johnson 
Benson  Goldsberry 
Stephen  Bella 


Joseph  K.  Owens,  Esq.i 


New  York 


David  Ayres,  Esq. 


*  "  Proceedings  of  the  General  Convention  of  Delegates  from  the  Members  and 
Local  Preachers  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  Friendly  to  Reform,  Assem- 
bled in  the  First  English  Evangelical  Church  in  the  City  of  Baltimore,  November 
15,1827."  Baltimore.  Printed  by  John  T.  Toy,  1827.  8vo.  36  pp.  Five  thousand 
copies  printed. 

1  These  vs^ere  present  in  person. 

2  These  gave  excuses  for  absence.  Considering  the  difficulties  and  expense  of 
travel  in  that  day  it  will  be  seen  that  the  attendance  was  as  large  as  could  have 
been  expected. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BE  FORM 


District  of  Columbia 

Rev.  William  Lamphier  i  William  King  i 

Gideon  Davis  i  Nathaniel  Brady  i 


North  Carolina 

Rev.  William  W.  Hill  i  Rev.  Thomas  Moore 

Rev.  William  Harris  i  Au^stus  Claiboume 


Pennsylvania 


Rev.  Charles  Avery  i 
Rev.  Anthony  A.  Palmer  i 
William  S.  Stockton  ^ 
John  Mecasky  i 
John  S.  Fureyi 
James  Kelch  i 
James  McKim  i 


Patrick  Leonard 
William  Scholey 
John  Bissell 
Samuel  Bushfield 
Henry  Ebert 
William  Robinson 
Samuel  Hazlett 


Rev.  Dr.  John  S.  French  i 
Rev.  Charles  Roundtree  ^ 
Rev.  Richard  Gilhami 
Rev.  Richard  Latimore  ^ 
Rev.  Dr.  John  B.  Tildeni 
Rev.  William  H.  Com  an 
Rev.  Benedict  Burgess 
Rev.  David  T.  Ball 


:nia 

John  Blount  i 
John  Jones  i 
Richard  H.  Ramsey 
Robert  Bailey,  Esq. 
Joseph  Ball.  Esq. 
Dr.  Andrew^  B.  Wooley  ^ 
George  0.  F.  Andrews  ^ 
Jordan  Edwards  ^ 


Maryland 
Western  Shore 


Rev.  Dr.  S.  K.  Jennings  ^ 
Rev.  Alexander  McCaine  i 
Rev.  William  Bowden  i 
Rev.  Benjamin  Richardson  ^ 
Rev.  Eli  Henklei 
Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen^ 
John  ChappelU 
Thomas  Mummy  ^ 
Philip  S.  ChappeU  i 
Charles  Jessop,  Esq.i 
Samuel  Willis  i 
Hezekiah  Linthicum  i 
Elias  Crutchley  ^ 


Nicholas  Durbin  i 
Thomas  W.  Boyd  i 
William  Bradford  i 
Kidd  Morsel 
Rev.  Daniel  Chambers  i 
Rev.  Slingsby  Linthicum 
John  J.  Harrod  i 
Ephraim  Smith  i 
Biscoe  Doxey  i 
Edward  Hall 
Jasper  Peddicord  ^ 
Richard  A.  Ridgeley  * 
Ignatius  Davis,  Esq. 


1  These  were  present  in  person. 


REFORM  CONVENTION  OF  NOVEMBER,  1827  139 


It  was  resolved  that  the  Convention  be  held  with  open  doors. 
After  routine  business  the  Convention  went  into  an  election  of 
President,  and  William  R.  Stewart,  Esq.,  of  Maryland  was  unani- 
mously chosen;  Henry  Willis  of  Frederick  County,  Md.,  and 
Luther  J.  Cox  of  Baltimore,  Secretaries.  Various  committees 
were  appointed.  There  was  preaching  at  night,  and  a  tender  was 
made  of  the  services  of  the  ministers  present  to  the  preachers  in 
charge  of  the  Methodist  churches  in  Baltimore,  Hanson  and 
Waugh,  for  the  following  Sabbath.  They  were  not  invited  to 
preach.  After  Friday  the  Convention  met  in  St.  John's  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  church.  Liberty  Street.^  The  material  doings  of 
the  body  were  summed  up  in  the  Memorial  addressed  to  the  Gen- 
eral Conference,  an  Address  to  the  General  Church,  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen,  Dr.  Henry  D.  Sellers,  and 
the  President  of  the  Convention  to  present  it.  A  Committee  of 
Vigilance  and  Correspondence  was  appointed:  S.  K.  Jennings, 
A.  McCaine,  John  J.  Harrod,  Luther  J.  Cox,  Wesley  Starr,  J.  W. 
Bordley,  Nicholas  Snethen,  Francis  Waters,  and  Eli  Henkle.  It 
was  unanimously  resolved,  on  motion  of  Snethen,  that  the  Re- 
formers are  not  opposed  to  the  Itinerancy,  and  that  all  articles 
"  which  have  a  tendency  injuriously  affecting  itinerancy  "  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  Mutual  Rights.  Snethen  was  invited  to  address 
the  Convention,  which  he  did;  and  after  religious  service  it  ad- 
journed, November  20.  The  Committee  of  Vigilance  was  author- 
ized to  call  another  Convention,  should  it  be  thought  necessary. 

1  These  were  present  in  person. 

2  It  had  outlived  its  usefulness  as  such,  and  John  Clark,  a  wealthy  member,  hav- 
ing a  mortgage  upon  it  and  being  favorably  impressed  with  the  cause  of  the  Reform- 
ers, led  to  the  invitation  to  occupy  it.  Arrangements  were  subsequently  made  for 
its  purchase  on  easy  terms  and  it  became  the  First  Methodist  Protestant  Church  of 
Baltimore,  John  Clark  and  others  of  the  old  membership  having  cast  in  their  lot 
with  the  new  organization.  Its  subsequent  varied  history,  having  its  cue  in  the 
fact  just  mentioned,  —  its  origin,  —  will  receive  attention  later. 


Eastern  Shore 


Rev.  Francis  Waters,  D.D. 
Rev.  D.  Watts 
Hon.  Philemon  B.  Hopper 
Edward  Anderson,  Esq. 
William  R.  Stewart,  Esq.i 
John  Wesley  Bordley  i 
John  Turner  i 
John  Cropper 


Rev.  Thomas  Walker  i 
William  Quinton,  Esq.i 
Thomas  Roberts,  Esq. 
John  Constable,  Esq.^ 
William  H.  Waters  i 
Rev.  Avra  Melvin 


William  R.  Durding 
Richard  Bayley,  Esq. 


140 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


The  Memorial  consists  of  ten  paragraphs.  The  first  announces 
the  purpose  of  the  Convention  "  petitioning  upon  the  subject  of 
lay  and  local  representation."  The  second  disclaims  any  purpose 
to  "use  any  word  or  phrase  "  to  injure  the  feelings  of  their  oppo- 
nents. The  third  suggests  that  a  representation  of  local  and  lay 
men  be  allowed  in  the  General  Conference.  The  fourth  calls 
attention  to  it  as  a  matter  of  right.  The  fifth  meets  the  objec- 
tion that  there  is  no  analogy  between  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
The  sixth  notices  the  strange  declaration  that  the  classes  named 
have  too  much  liberty  already.  The  seventh  specifies  that  it  is 
legislative  liberty  that  is  asked.  The  eighth  meets  the  point 
that  such  a  representation  can  be  claimed  only  as  an  expediency. 
The  ninth  covers  the  alleged  impracticability  of  it,  and  the 
claim  of  a  separate  equal  representation  for  the  locality  is  waived 
so  that  the  number  of  laymen  and  local  preachers  shall  equal  the 
number  of  itinerants  in  the  General  Conference,  thus  classing 
the  local  preachers  as  laymen.  The  tenth  asks  that  the  old  rule 
of  1796,  as  to  "sowing  dissensions,"  shall  be  so  modified  as  to 
prevent  its  abuse  by  prejudging  the  intentions  of  brethren  —  they 
prefer  its  abolition  so  that  it  be  not  open  to  favor  constructive 
treason.  And,  finally,  it  asks  that  the  trial  of  members  shall  be 
more  in  analogy  with  the  civil  law  as  to  jury  and  right  of  challenge. 
It  will  be  seen  that  these  points  are  in  no  sense  "radical,"  and 
yet  expressed  the  demands  of  the  Reformers  at  this  date.  The 
Address  to  the  Members  of  the  Church  ^  rehearses  the  history  of 
the  Reform  movement  in  England  and  America;  and  is  a  calm 
and  judicial  appeal,  and  sets  forth  that  they  are  not  for  hurried 
reformation.  It  says :  "  We  feel  no  disposition  to  hurry  our 
Methodist  brethren  into  any  premature  determinations;  all  we 
are  disposed  at  present  to  insist  on  is  the  rationality  and  Christian 
obligation  they  are  under  to  give  the  subject  a  fair  and  persever- 
ing examination.  If  we  are  mistaken  in  our  views,  we  sincerely 
wish  to  be  set  right;  but  we  think  it  impossible  for  any  people 
to  judge  of  the  matters  in  dispute  who  neglect  to  examine  into 
the  subject,  or  who  refuse  to  give  an  impartial  hearing  to  botli 
sides  of  the  controversy."  It  makes  a  pamphlet  of  nine  octavo 
pages,  and  the  sentences  cited  find  an  illustration  in  the  testimony 

1  The  original  draft  of  this  Address  as  it  came  from  the  Committee  is  in  the 
writer's  possession  with  its  numerous  amendments  and  emendations  as  made  by 
the  Convention  before  its  final  passage.  A  number  of  these  changes  are  made  to 
soften  the  rhetoric  and  avoid  expressions  and  arguments  which  might  be  con- 
strued as  offensive  by  tlie  opponents  of  Reform.  This  care  and  concession  availed 
nothing,  however. 


bond's  plot  through  dr.  green 


141 


of  Rev.  George  Brown,  as  to  the  partisan  and  one-sided  judgment 
of  not  a  few  of  the  high  officials  of  the  Church  against  Keform. 
He  rehearses  a  conversation  he  had  with  Bishop  George,  while 
he  was  presiding  elder,  in  which  he  justified  his  reading  the 
Mutual  Eights.  "'Bishop  George,'  said  I,  'did  you  ever  read 
the  Mutual  Eights?^  'Why,  no,'  said  he;  'but  brother  Roszel 
has,  and  he  has  told  me  all  about  it;  and  he  thinks  it  will  do  a 
great  injury  to  the  Church.'  I  then  advised  him  not  to  make  any 
further  opposition  to  that  work  until  he  would  read  it  for  himself. 
The  good  Bishop  was  affected  unto  tears  at  what  he  considered 
my  obstinacy;  and  so  the  conversation  closed."  ^ 

It  must  not  escape  notice  that  at  the  time  of  the  expulsions  the 
Baltimore  Union  Society  consisted  of  133  male  members,  all  of 
whom  were  identified  with  the  publication  of  the  Mutual  Eights. 
Immediately  after  the  expulsion  of  the  eleven  local  preachers  and 
the  twenty-two  laymen,  the  Society  sent  the  prosecuting  Com- 
mittee the  names  of  thirty-three  more  on  their  own  authorization, 
with  the  promise  that  when  they  had  disposed  of  these  as  many 
more  names  would  be  furnished,  until  the  whole  Society  was 
covered.  It  was  not,  however,  for  the  want  of  information  that 
the  Committee  paused  in  their  work  of  expulsion,  despite  the 
inconsistency  of  the  act  of  selecting  thirty-three  as  guilty,  who 
were  so  in  no  other  sense  than  the  remaining  one  hundred,  who, 
by  their  omission,  were  allowed  innocent.^  One,  and  the  prin- 
cipal, reason  of  the  surcease  was  the  Machiavellian  policy  of  Dr. 
Bond,  who,  soon  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Reform  Convention, 
surreptitiously  set  on  foot  another  attempt  to  compromise  the 
difference.  In  the  "  Narrative  and  Defence  "  much  is  made  of  the 
allegation  of  Dr.  Jennings  that  Dr.  Bond  was  the  prime  mover  in 
the  "  under  plot "  to  restore  the  expelled  if  they  would  come  to 
the  terms  proposed  to  them.  In  the  "Narrative  "  he  quite  indig- 
nantly denies  the  paternity  of  it,  as  he  subsequently  concealed 
his  connection  with  a  collateral  plot  to  accomplish  the  same  end, 
though,  as  already  found,  confessing  with  pride  the  authorship 
of  the  business  in  after  years. 

The  collateral  plot  developed  by  the  appearance  in  Baltimore, 
early  in  January,  1828,  of  Dr.  J.  C.  Green  of  Virginia,  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Church,  who  interviewed  Dr.  Jennings,  pro- 
posing substantially  the  same  conditions  of  restoration  of  the 
expelled.  He  was  so  plausible,  and  professing  to  be  acting  on 
his  own  motion,  at  first  his  approaches  were  entertained;  but  dis- 

1    Itinerant  Life,"  p.  127.  2  Paris's  *'  History,"  pp.  233,  234. 


142  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


coveries  followed  which  unmasked  the  scheme  as  having  the  same 
source  with  the  first  attempt  to  compromise  the  Eeformers.  A 
series  of  letters  passed  between  them  which  are  preserved  in  the 
"Narrative  and  Defence,"  and,  finally,  broke  off  with  no  better 
result  than  the  former.  In  the  conference  room  attached  to  the 
Light  Street  church,  which  was  the  usual  place  of  these  private 
gatherings,  as  of  the  trials  of  the  Reformers,  a  note  was  found, 
which  had  been  carelessly  left  upon  the  floor,  bearing  date  the 
same  as  Dr.  Green's  letter  to  the  Quarterly  Conference  of  the 
station,  asking  for  a  suspension  of  further  proceedings  until  he 
could  interview  Dr.  Jennings;  and  this  note  was  to  apprise  Dr. 
Bond  of  Dr.  Green's  arrival  in  the  city,  and  the  request  for  a 
private  interview  at  "dinner,  or  soon  thereafter."  It  was  held 
as  proof  of  complicity,  though  he  affirmed  to  Dr.  Jennings  that 
he  had  come  "unsolicited  to  do  so  by  any  one."  Yet  in  the  Quar- 
terly Conference  referred  to,  after  he  had  a  long  night  interview 
with  him,  Dr.  Bond  arose  and  asked,  "Who  is  this  Dr.  Green? 
Is  he  the  man  who  preached,"  etc.^  It  will  be  noted  that  this 
second  attempt  to  conciliate  the  Reformers,  without  conceding 
the  slightest  to  them,  took  place  within  a  month  after  a  meeting 
was  called  of  Methodists  at  the  old  Baptist  church,  corner  Front 
and  Pitt  streets,  where  the  former  meeting  of  members  was  held 
to  indorse  the  Annual  Conference  action  in  the  suspension  of 
Dorsey.  Care  was  taken  to  make  it  a  meeting  of  male  members 
not  in  connection  with  the  Union  Society,  with  the  same  guileful 
intent,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  led  their  opponents  to  hold 
their  meeting  with  the  boast  that  members  of  the  Union  Society 
had  not  been  invited,  that  is,  to  give  the  appearance  of  a  strong 
constituency  in  favor  or  opposed  to  Reform  aside  from  the  active 
participants. 

It  was  held  December  12,  1827,  with  Francis  Coates  as  Chair- 
man and  Dr.  William  Zollickoffer  as  Secretary ;  and  it  appointed 
a  committee  of  seven  to  make  a  report  to  an  adjourned  meeting, 
held  on  the  13th  of  December  in  the  same  place.  The  committee 
was  Moses  M.  Henkle,  John  J.  Harrod,  William  C.  Spindler, 
William  Rusk,  William  Zollickoffer,  Robert  B.  Varden,  and 
George  Evans.  Of  this  number  Harrod  alone  was  a  member  of 
the  Union  Society  and,  in  consequence,  declined  to  serve.  It  is 
called,  in  travesty  of  their  opponents'  meeting,  "a  very  large 
meeting."  How  large  the  writer  cannot  determine,  as  no  data 
are  furnished.    It  adopted  the  report  of  the  committee  with  but 

1  Jennings's  "  Exposition,"  and  "The  Narrative  and  Defence." 


MEETINGS  AND  COUNTER  MEETINGS 


143 


two  dissenting  votes,  and  these  were  given  by  persons  not  entitled 
to  vote  in  this  meeting.  The  notice  which  was  sent  to  the 
churches  for  its  call  was  openly  denounced  by  Dr.  Bond  after 
reading  it,  "that  such  a  meeting  could  only  be  an  attempt  to  sub- 
stitute mob  law  for  the  discipline  of  the  Church."  The  report  was 
ordered  printed,  and  is  a  cogent  review  of  the  proceedings  against 
Reformers,  the  exclusion  of  fourteen  local  preachers  from  the 
annual  plan  of  appointments,  for  no  other  reason  than  their 
sympathy  with  Dennis  B.  Dorsey;  the  weak  explanation  of  the 
agents  in  it,  that  the  preacher  in  charge  had  "the  undoubted 
right  to  select  such  preachers  as  he  thinks  expedient  to  employ;  " 
the  character  of  the  committees  of  trial ;  their  confessed  prejudg- 
ment, one  of  them,  Armstrong,  admitting  that  he  was  so  preju- 
diced against  Wesley  Starr,  one  of  the  expelled,  that  he  was 
unable  to  do  him  justice,  and  so  preferred  not  to  be  on  his  case; 
but  was,  nevertheless,  retained,  and  when  the  accused  examined 
these  jurors  as  to  the  matter  of  their  prejudgment,  the  chairman. 
Rev.  James  M.  Hanson,  pronounced  the  questions  "out  of 
order,"  and  proceeded  with  the  mock  trials.  It  is  a  searching 
inquiry  into  the  disciplinary  law  under  which  the  offenders  were 
arraigned,  and  the  method  of  trial  shown  to  be  utterly  unamen- 
able to  fairness,  and  consistent  with  nothing  but  a  foregone  pur- 
pose to  expel,  making  out  the  case  where  evidence  was  deficient. 
In  the  whole  history  of  "moral  discipline,"  as  administered  in 
the  Church,  never  before  or  since  have  there  been  such  flagrant 
instances  of  lawless  expulsions.  The  Address  was  dated  Janu- 
ary 1,  1828.  Shinn  issued  an  Appendix  to  his  "Finishing 
Stroke"  in  rejoinder,  and  other  masterful  reviews  were  made 
by  Union  Societies,  thus  flooding  the  community,  now  the  only 
impartial  readers,  with  irrefragable  proofs  that  "moral  disci- 
pline "  in  the  Church  was  based,  not  upon  law  and  evidence,  but 
upon  power. 

The  Baltimore  District  Conference  met,  December  26,  1827, 
in  the  M'Kendrean  Sabbath-school  room,  Lombard  Street,  with 
Rev.  Joseph  Frye,  Presiding  Elder,  as  President;  and  the 
appeals  of  the  eleven  suspended  local  preachers  were  to  come 
before  it.  There  were  a  number  of  colored  members  of  the  Con- 
ference, and  it  was  ascertained  by  the  Bond  party  that  unless 
these  voted  the  friends  of  the  suspended  preachers  would  have  a 
slight  majority  in  the  Conference.  It  was  therefore  resolved,  at 
any  risk,  to  adjourn  the  District  Conference  and  not  suffer  the 
appeals  to  be  heard,  but  to  force  the  appellants  to  bring  their 


144 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


cases  before  the  Quarterly  Conference,  in  which  their  opponents 
would  have  a  clear  majority.  The  rule  made  by  the  General 
Conference  of  1824  as  to  the  colored  men  voting,  read,  "  Our 
colored  preachers  and  official  members  shall  have  the  privileges 
which  are  usual  to  others  in  the  district  and  quarterly  confer- 
ences, where  the  usages  of  the  country  do  not  forbid  it."  It  was 
done  in  concession  to  the  Methodist  officials  in  the  slave  states, 
and  such  colored  members  in  consequence  had  never  voted  in 
Maryland.  The  issue  was  made  in  the  District  Conference  on  a 
motion  that  the  suspended  preachers  had  no  right  to  vote  while 
their  appeals  were  pending,  and  the  Chair  ruled  affirmatively. 
An  appeal  was  taken,  and  the  vote  stood  as  follows:  Yeas  — 
John  Daughday,  John  Chalmers,  Z.  McComas,  T.  Perkins,  L. 
Elbert,  J.  Shane,  S.  Williams,  D.  McJilton,  E.  Hall,  S.  Gore, 
N.  Harden,  Jacob  King,  T.  Bassford,  J.  Lazenby,  J.  W.  Harris, 
Geo.  Summers,  T.  E.  Bond,  J.  Watters,  and  G.  K,idgely  (nine- 
teen). Nays  —  S.  K.  Jennings,  A.  McCaine,  J.  R.  Williams, 
D.  E.  Reese,  T.  C.  French,  W.  Kesley,  L.  J.  Cox,  T.  McCor- 
mick,  J.  S.  Reese,  J.  Robb,  R.  T.  Boyd,  W.  Bowden,  Slingsby 
Linthicum,  L.  Selby,  B.  Hood,  J.  Day,  George  Wells,  N.  Hos- 
kinson,  R.  H.  Merrikin,  and  John  Sharpley  (twenty).  The 
nays  composed  nearly  all  the  Conference  in  Baltimore,  the  yeas 
being  principally  from  the  county. 

On  the  following  morning,  when  the  Conference  assembled,  the 
chair  again  pronounced  against  the  right  of  the  suspended 
preachers  to  vote ;  but,  knowing  that  he  was  unsustained  by  the 
usage,  it  was  predetermined  to  adjourn  the  Conference  by  count- 
ing the  colored  voters.  Accordingly,  a  motion  to  adjourn  was 
made  —  debate  peremptorily  cut  off  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr. 
Bond  and  sustained  by  the  chair,  and  —  the  vote  put  while  a 
number  of  members  were  remonstrating  —  declared  carried; 
nine  colored  votes  giving  the  yeas  twenty-eight,  as  against  the 
twenty  nays  of  the  white  members.  The  negative  at  once  entered 
a  Protest,  and  when  it  was  discovered  that  the  Secretary,  Chal- 
mers, had  made  a  minute  that  only  fifteen  voted  negatively,  a 
further  certificate  was  filed,  signed  by  twenty  in  denial.  Several 
colored  preachers  did  not  vote,  despite  the  ruling  in  their  favor, 
knowing  that  it  was  against  all  Maryland  usage  that  they  should 
do  so.  It  was  afterward  ascertained  by  the  confession  of  one  of 
them  that  Bishop  George  had  advised  that  they  vote  to  accom- 
plish the  object.  The  Narrative  and  Defence"  makes  a  differ- 
ent showing  as  to  what  was  done ;  but  as  this  involves  questions 


ELEVEN  PBEACUERS  FINALLY  ''EXPELLED''  145 


of  veracity,  the  critical  reader  must  take  the  evidence  on  both 
sides  and  judge  for  himself.  None  of  the  expelled  laymen  took 
an  appeal,  and  on  the  organization  of  the  Quarterly  Conference 
the  suspended  preachers  took  no  notice  of  it,  taking  the  ground 
that  the  rightful  judicatory,  the  District  Conference,  before  which 
their  appeal  should  have  been  heard,  had  been  violently  and 
unlawfully  dissolved.  In  consequence  the  Quarterly  Conference 
proceeded  to  consider  their  cases  as  though  appeal  had  been 
made,  and  the  charges  sustained  against  the  ten  local  preachers 
with  the  proviso :  "  unless  he  withdraw  forthwith  from  the  Union 
Society,  and  promise  not  to  be  engaged  hereafter  in  any  publica- 
tion that  inveighs  against  the  discipline,  or  government,  or  speak 
evil  of  ministers;  and  signify  his  intention  before  the  final 
adjournment  of  this  conference."^  None  being  present  or  ap- 
pealing, they  were  recorded,  Expelled.  Alexander  McCaine  was 
Expelled,  no  proviso  being  made  in  his  case.  Subsequently 
James  M.  Hanson  notified  the  laymen  that  they  were  Expelled. ^ 
Prior  to  the  meeting  of  the  Quarterly  Conference,  the  ten  sus- 
pended local  preachers  sent  a  Protest  to  James  M.  Ha,nson,  giving 
their  reasons  for  refusing  to  appeal  to  that  body;  and  a  Reply 
having  been  published  to  the  first  Protest  of  the  preachers,  a 
Review  of  it  was  issued  by  "The  Authors  of  the  Protest."  Re- 

1  See  "Narrative  and  Defence,"  Jennings's  "Exposition,"  Mutual  Rights,  for 
the  evidence. 

2  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  justify  the  blatant  record  of  "  Expelled  "  (see 
note  in  previous  volume  anent  it)  on  the  ground  that  it  was  the  common  expres- 
sion used  by  the  Annual  Conferences  to  cover  all  cases  both  of  mal-  and  mis-feas- 
ance.  It  is  largely  true  of  the  early  days,  but,  as  was  shown  in  the  first  volume, 
at  least  two  exceptions  exist  to  this  rule,  one  in  the  minutes  of  1816,  an  expulsion 
with  the  qualifying  note  "  for  refusing  to  subscribe  to  the  second  article  of  the 
doctrines  of  our  Church,"  and  the  other  in  1826,  which  could  not  have  been  for- 
gotten so  soon  as  1827,  "  Deprived  of  his  official  standing  in  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,"  which  exceptions  in  either  case  were  manifestly  made  to  shield 
the  character  of  these  two  brethren  with  posterity  that  they  were  not  excluded 
for  immorality.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Reformers,  preachers  and  laymen,  no 
such  effort  was  made  to  protect  them  with  posterity,  though  the  admission  was 
freely  made  that  their  moral  characters  were  unimpeachable,  by  qualifying  the 
term  "  Expelled,"  with  any  explanation.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  clear  from  subsequent 
events  that  it  was  intended  to  smirch  them,  or  at  least  to  leave  it  open  to  infer- 
ence that  they  were  immoral  as  well  as  contumacious.  It  was  a  grievance  under 
which  they  labored  to  the  day  of  their  deaths,  and  ever  since,  except  it  may  be  in 
the  case  of  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  who  lived  to  be  a  nonogenarian  in  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Late  in  life  an  event  occurred  that  officially  recog- 
nized him  as  a  minister,  as  will  be  seen  later.  This  act  has  never  been  condoned 
by  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Baltimore,  or  by  any  of  her  historians,  and 
until  it  is  done,  fidelity  to  the  memory  of  these  "  Expelled  "  brethren  demands 
that  it  shall  not  be  forgotten  by  their  posterity  and  the  historians  of  Reform. 

VOL.  II  —  L 


146 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


f erring  to  the  allegations  in  the  "Eeply  to  the  Protest,"  one  para- 
graph will  give  the  gist  of  the  matter.  They  say  "  the  brethren 
had  been  charged  with  'evil  speaking,'  etc.,  and  Hhat  they  have 
yet  to  learn  that  they  are  not  guilty  of  a  violation  of  the  laws  of 
God  and  the  Discipline. '  It  is  true  they  were  charged,  but  not 
with  immorality  J  their  prosecutors  declaring  on  the  trials  that 
they  had  nothing  against  the  'moral  or  religious  standing '  of 
those  against  whom  they  had  brought  charges.  And  we  chal- 
lenge the  authors  of  the  Keply  to  give  to  the  public  the  icords 
and  sentences  which  our  brethren  have  published  in  the  Mutual 
Bights,  that  are  'violations  of  the  laws  of  God  and  of  the  Disci- 
pline.' Until  this  is  done,  we  say,  the  insinuation  is  utterly 
unworthy  of  public  confidence.  Baltimore,  January  11,  1828." 
The  Protests  and  the  Replies  having  been  published  in  the  daily 
secular  papers,  the  impression  upon  the  Christian  community  of 
the  city  was  so  unfavorable  to  the  anti-reformers,  that  now,  for 
the  first  time,  to  shield  the  unwarrantable  proceedings  from  gen- 
eral condemnation,  these  insinuations  of  immorality  were  inter- 
jected,^ and  were  often  repeated  afterward,  notably  by  Dr.  Bond, 
as  a  justification  of  the  excommunication  of  preachers  and  lay- 
men who  stood  so  high  in  the  community  for  purity  and  integrity. 

In  these  days  of  frequent  interdenominational  exchange  of 
membership,  the  general  level  of  spirituality  in  the  Protestant 
churches,  and  the  absence  in  the  pulpits  of  sharp  lines  of  doc- 
trinal differences,  it  is  impossible  to  appreciate  what  expulsion 
meant  to  these  Methodists,  most  of  them  of  many  years'  stand- 
ing, from  the  only  Church  exhibiting  the  doctrinal  teaching  and 
furnishing  the  means  of  grace  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed, 
and  without  which  religious  li'fe  seemed  impossible.  Once  more 
Paternalism  had  assumed  its  fearful  prerogative  of  coercion,  and 
made  itself  responsible  for  a  new  Methodist  organization;  and 
yet  these  brethren  still  refused  to  entertain  such  a  purpose. 
Surely  the  ensuing  General  Conference  would  give  redress  and 
forestall  further  excisions  and  withdrawals.  Xo  longer  welcome 
even  as  visitors  at  their  old  church  homes,  something  must  be 
done  as  an  expedient  to  prevent  social  disintegration  among 
themselves.  The  wise  counsels  of  Snethen,  Shinn,  Stockton, 
and  others  of  the  leaders  were  never  more  emergent  than  now. 

Dennis  B.  Dorsey  received  pecuniary  assistance  from  a  num- 
ber of  sources,  and  the  Baltimore  Conference  itself  allowed  him 
the  stipend  usual  to  a  superannuated  minister  for  the  first  year, 

1  See  note  2  ou  p.  145. 


WHAT  ''EXPULSION''  MEANT  TO  METUODIST(^  147 


it  may  be  safely  said  not  willingly,  but  the  claim  could  not  well 
be  ignored  for  the  nonce,  and  he  promptly  gave  them  public 
credit  for  it.  The  sum  was  less  than  a  hundred  dollars.  He 
remained  in  Baltimore  slowly  recovering  from  his  illness,  and 
eking  out  a  subsistence  where  the  charity  of  his  friends  failed 
of  meeting  his  requirements  as  a  disabled  married  man.  The 
expelled  preachers  and  laymen  were  greeted  with  words  of  cheer 
from  their  fellow-Reformers  all  over  the  country.  As  presenting 
a  fact  not  heretofore  named,  the  Union  Society  of  Kensington 
(a  district  of  Philadelphia)  passed  resolutions  denouncing  the 
Baltimore  expulsions,  signed:  John  Vaughan,  Chairman,  G.  J. 
Hamilton,  Secretary,  January  17,  1828.  Nearly  all  the  old 
Societies  planted  themselves  firmly  by  a  similar  action,  and  a 
number  of  new  Societies  were  formed  under  the  impulse  of  the 
expulsions. 


CHAPTER  IX 


Inchoate  organization  of  expelled  Reformers  and  their  friends  —  "Withdrawal  of 
female  members  and  their  plea  —  More  Union  Societies —  Emory's  "  Defence  of 
our  Fathers  "  — Bascom  President  of  Union  College,  Pa.  —  The  General  Confer- 
ence of  1828;  prominent  members;  Dr.  George  Brown  and  Bishop  Hedding; 
the  true  story  —  Reform  and  anti-reform  contest  in  the  General  Conference  on 
the  appeal  of  Dorsey  and  Pool;  guileful  compromise  proposed  for  restoration 
of  all  the  expelled;  what  came  of  it  —  Dr.  George  Brown's  graphic  picture  of 
the  defensive  speech  of  Asa  Shiun  of  the  Reformers  before  the  General  Confer- 
ence; its  marvellous  effects;  delay  of  the  vote  secured  and  another  dark  lantern 
caucus  secured  a  bare  majority  denying  the  appeals ;  full  account  —  Final  dis- 
position of  the  "  suspended  resolutions  "  on  the  eldership  question  — Emory's 
tergiversation  —  Change  of  the  Restrictive  Rule  for  altering  the  organic  law. 

After  careful  consideration  the  initial  step  for  their  social 
preservation  as  Methodists  was  taken  by  a  number  of  the  expelled 
Eeformers  and  their  friends,  December  23,  1827,  at  a  called  meet- 
ing, probably  at  the  residence  of  Dr.  Jennings,  as  it  was  there 
the  mothers,  wives,  and  daughters  of  the  expelled  convened  a  week 
later  for  action.  As  the  result  of  their  deliberations  the  follow- 
ing Instrument  was  formulated,  "under  which  the  expelled  mem- 
bers and  ministers  in  Baltimore  have  united,  in  order  to  pray 
together,  to  receive  the  word  of  exhortation,  and  to  watch  over 
one  another  in  love,  that  they  may  help  each  other  to  work  out 
their  salvation."  It  reads  as  follows:  "We  the  undersigned, 
formerly  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  city 
of  Baltimore,  having  been  excluded  from  the  fellowship  of  that 
body,  by  what  we  conceive  to  be  an  unjustifiable  process,  based 
upon  insufficient  charges,  and  those  charges  not  sustained  by  coni- 
petent  testimonj',  have,  for  the  present,  agreed  to  unite  together 
as  a  society  of  original  Methodists,  under  the  'General  Rules  of 
the  United  Societies  '  prepared  by  the  Revs.  John  and  Charles 
Wesley.  Our  object  is  to  wait  and  see  whether  the  present 
abuses  in  the  administration  of  the  government  will  be  corrected. 
If  they  should,  and  freedom  of  inquiry  and  public  discussion  be 
permitted  in  the  Methodist  Episcoj)ai  Church,  it  will  afford  us 
pleasure  to  return,  provided  we  can  d(;  no  without  relinquishing 

148 


LKVI  R.  REESK. 


JOHN  S.  REESE. 


PBOVISIONAL  OBGANIZATION  OF  REFOmiERS  149 


the  opinions  for  which  we  were  excluded;  namely,  an  honest, 
and,  as  we  believe,  an  enlightened  conviction  that  the  present 
form  of  government  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  so  far 
as  it  precludes  the  grand  principle  of  liepresentation,  and  confines 
all  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  powers  to  the  itinerant 
ministry,  is  unscriptural  and  anti-Christian,  and  that  reform  in 
the  government  of  said  Church  is  necessary,  in  order  to  its  essen- 
tial and  permanent  prosperity.  With  these  views  we  solemnly 
unite  in  the  name  of  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church,  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  receiving  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  our  guide ; 
and  for  prudential  purposes  adopting  as  an  instrument  of  union 
the  'General  Kules '  of  Messrs.  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  with 
such  subsequent  regulations  as  our  peculiar  circumstances  may 
from  time  to  time  require. 

"  John  Chappell  Thomas  Jarrett 

John  J.  Harrod  John  Gephart,  Jr. 

Wesley  Starr  John  P.  Howard 

John  Kennard  Levi  R.  Keese 

William  K.  Boyle  Lambert  Thomas 

Arthur  Emmerson  Samuel  Jarrett 

Ebenezer  Strahen  James  R.  Forman 

John  H.  W.  Hawkins  George  Northerman 

Thomas  Patterson  Samuel  Thompson 

Samuel  Krebs  Samuel  Guest 

Thomas  Parson  John  P.  Paul." 


A  month  later,  January  26,  1828,  "We  the  undersigned,  elders, 
deacons,  and  licensed  preachers,  subscribe  our  names,  respect- 
ively, to  the  foregoing  instrument,  approving  the  objects  con- 
templated therein. 

*' Samuel  K.  Jennings  Luther  J.  Cox 

Daniel  E.  Reese  John  S.  Reese 

James  R  .  Williams  John  C.  French 

William  Kesley  Reuben  T.  Boyd." 
Thomas  McCormick 


December  31,  1827,  "  At  a  meeting  of  female  members  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  convened  at  the  Eev.  Dr.  Jen- 
nings's, for  the  purpose  of  taking  into  consideration  the  most 
advisable  course  to  be  pursued  by  the  wives  and  friends  of  those 
members  of  said  Church  who  have  been  expelled,  and  of  those 
ministers  who  have  been  suspended  by  the  official  members  of 
the  Baltimore  station,  for  the  sake  of  reform.    On  motion,  re- 


150  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 

solved  that  the  members  of  this  meeting  deeply  regret  the  neces- 
sity of  withdrawing  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  yet 
from  a  conviction  of  duty  we  do  hereby  resolve  to  withdraw  from 
said  Church  when  our  husbands,  fathers,  or  friends  shall  have 
been  expelled.  A  committee  of  nine  was  appointed  to  report  at 
a  meeting  to  be  called  to  hear  and  act  on  it :  Rebecca  Hall,  Presi- 
dent; Mary  Ann  Woods,  Secretary."  January  7,  1828,  another 
meeting  was  held,  the  report  received,  and  a  Declaration  adopted, 
which  rehearses  the  measures  of  expulsion ;  that  they  are  impelled 
to  withdraw  solely  by  the  existing  difficulties  in  the  Church,  and 
that  they  have  not  been  influenced  to  the  course  proposed  by  our 
husbands,  relatives,  or  friends."  A  Letter  of  Withdrawal  was 
prepared  and  signed  by  these  heroic  and  godly  women  to  this 
effect : — 

"Eev.  James  M.  Hanson:  We  the  undersigned,  female  mem- 
bers of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  city  of  Baltimore, 
feel  ourselves  under  the  necessity  of  addressing  you  on  a  subject 
peculiarly  painful.  For  a  series  of  years  we  have  been  endeavor- 
ing in  our  humble  sphere  to  serve  God  and  make  our  way  to 
heaven.  And  long  since  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  became 
the  home  of  our  choice,  where  we  had  fondlj^  hoped  to  dwell  in 
the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  the  means  of  grace  and  the  ordinances 
of  Christianity  to  the  end  of  life.  In  this  Church  our  dearest 
Christian  associations  and  religious  friendships  were  formed  and 
nourished.  Our  hopes,  our  fears,  our  wishes,  all  were  identified 
with  those  of  the  Church  of  our  choice.  Around  all  her  ordi- 
nances, her  services,  her  ministers,  our  best  affections  were  en- 
twined; and  for  her  peace  and  prosperity  our  daily  prayers  were 
offered  to  a  throne  of  grace.  This  preference  was  not  given  to 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  because  we  considered  her  gov- 
ernment more  perfect  than  that  of  others ;  for  indeed  we  were  no 
more  careful  to  inquire  into  that  subject  than  our  preachers  were 
to  give  us  instruction  in  it;  but  our  preference  grew  out  of  the 
purity  of  her  doctrines,  the  piety  of  her  members,  the  excellency 
of  her  moral  discipline,  and  her  itinerant  plan.  And  though 
recent  events  have  led  us  to  examine  more  closely  than  hereto- 
fore the  Methodist  Discipline,  and  this  examination  has  resulted 
in  a  conviction  of  its  defectiveness  in  many  particulars,  yet  we 
could  have  borne  those  comparatively  trivial  inconveniences,  and 
could  have  lived  happily  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  all  our  days, 
nor  had  we  thought  of  forsaking  her  communion  till  death,  but 


MOTHERS  IN  ISRAEL  IVITHDRAW 


151 


for  recent  occurrences  which  have  taken  place  under  your  admin- 
istration and  superintendence.  But,  Sir,  to  see  a  large  number 
of  our  highly  esteemed  local  preachers  excluded  the  pulpits, 
arraigned,  condemned,  and  excommunicated,  and  the  seal  of 
official  silence  set  upon  the  lips  which  have  so  often  conveyed 
heavenly  consolation  to  our  minds  and  hearts ;  to  see  our  beloved 
class  leaders  torn  from  us,  and  deprived  of  their  official  standing, 
and  a  large  number  of  our  lay -brethren  expelled  without  a  crime; 
and  to  see  the  unwarrantable  measures  by  which  these  distressing 
results  have  been  effected,  is  too  painful  for  us!  In  short,  to 
find  our  dear  companions,  fathers,  brothers,  children,  and  friends 
treated  as  criminals  and  enemies,  prosecuted,  suspended,  and  ex- 
pelled ;  denounced  as  backsliders  and  disturbers  of  the  peace ;  and 
to  be  ourselves  treated  coldly  and  distantly  by  our  former  friends 
and  by  our  pastors ;  and  all  for  a  mere  difference  of  opinion  about 
church  government,  is  more  than  we  feel  bound  in  Christian 
charity  longer  to  endure;  and  we  therefore  feel  it  our  duty,  in 
the  fear  of  God,  though  with  emotions  of  poignant  sorrow  and 
with  aching  hearts,  to  withdraw  from  the  Church  of  our  choice 
and  fondest  attachments.  To  this  painful  resort  we  are  driven 
by  the  measures  you  have  taken  against  our  friends  and  brethren. 
To  remain  in  the  Church  under  the  circumstances  now  existing, 
would  be  to  evince  a  want  of  filial,  connubial,  and  fraternal 
attachment  to  our  persecuted  friends  and  a  want  of  self-respect. 
We  therefore  request  you  to  consider  us  as  withdrawn  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  to  furnish  us  a  joint  or  indi- 
vidual certificate  of  our  acceptable  standing,  as  soon  as  con- 
venient. 


"  Hannah  L.  Harrod 
Catharine  Mummy 
Guinilda  Mummy- 
Mary  Kennard 
Elizabeth  Kennard 
Sarah  Krebs 
Jane  Thomas 
EHzabeth  Williams 
Sarah  Williams 
Elizabeth  Taylor 
Mary  Williams 
Frances  Williams 
Catharine  Williams 
Hannah  Jennings 
Mary  Owings 
Elizabeth  Crouch 


Elinor  Gephart 
Maria  Paul 
Elizabeth  Forman 
Phillippa  Starr 
Rachel  Hawkins 
Elizabeth  Baxley 
Susan  Guest 
Sarah  Emmerson 
Isabella  Northerman 
Anna  Jarrett 
Ruth  Reese 
Rebecca  R.  Reese 
Margaret  Reese 
Mary  Reese 
Margaret  Patterson 
Mary  French 


Sydney  Boyd 
Rebecca  Jane  Roberts 
Lucy  Fore 
Mary  Jane  Thomas 
Jemima  Jones 
Hannah  Martin 
Letitia  M.  Martin 
Maria  M.  Martin 
Maria  Cox 
Mary  Meads 
Mary  Ann  Woods 
Catharine  Wallace 
Elizabeth  Britt 
Mary  Ann  Valiant 
Elizabeth  Valiant." 


162 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


"(Sister  Anna  G.  Chappell,  the  wife,  and  Sarah  A.  Chappell, 
the  sister,  of  our  aged  brother,  John  Chappell,  had  withdrawn 
two  days  previous  to  the  first  meeting.)" 

Nothing  need  be  added  to  this  touching  story.  All  that  expul- 
sion meant  to  the  laymen,  withdrawal  meant  to  these  lay-women. 
They  were  marked  Withdrawn,  and  were  content  with  treatment 
as  lenient. 

At  a  meeting  of  Reformers  April  1,  1828,  the  title  of  the 
Association  under  which  they  banded  together  was  determined  to 
be:  " The  Associated  Methodist  Reformers."  Rules  and  regula- 
tions were  adopted,  one  of  which  calls  for  citation:  "On  the 
admission  of  females,  the  female  members  shall  be  entitled  to 
vote."  In  the  old  Church  they  had  been  class  leaders,  and  con- 
sequently members  of  the  Quarterly  Conference  under  the  law, 
though  the  writer  meets  no  recorded  instance  where  the  recogni- 
tion was  demanded.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  in  elemental  Methodist 
Protestantism  suffrage  was  without  sex.  It  had  been  well,  per- 
haps, if  it  had  received  Constitutional  formulation  afterward. 
It  was  not  without  advocates,  but  narrower  views  prevailed,  as 
they  did  in  other  things,  from  which,  if  a  departure  had  been 
made,  it  would  have  furthered  ultimately  the  cause  of  Reform  in 
Methodism.  The  reasons  for  the  circumscription  will  appear 
later.  The  Associated  members  were  119  in  number.  Most  of 
the  names  have  been  embalmed  in  the  lists  given,  but  in  addition 
a  number  of  others  should  be  recorded :  John,  Catharine,  Sarah, 
and  Ann  Guishard,  John  J.  Thompson,  Charles  Looney,  John 
Coates,  John  Fountain,  Charles  Watts,  Mary  Watts,  Ann  Murray, 
Sarah  Peal,  Mary  Whiting,  Elizabeth  C.  Henkle,  Rebecca,  Mary, 
and  Frances  R.  Hall,  Matilda  Kennard,  Frances  Bisher,  Ann 
Many,  Ann  Clark,  Mary  Looney,  Sarah  M.  B.  Sweeney,  Ann  Bell, 
Mary  Fountain,  Ann  Hance,  Susan  Breden,  Harriet  Barnes,  Hester 
Taylor,  Lucretia  Coates,  Elizabeth  Carter,  and  Mary  Dennison.^ 

At  this  stage  it  may  be  well  to  give  two  citations  from  an 
address  which  was  intended  to  have  been  delivered  defensively 
before  the  District  Conference  by  Dr.  Jennings,  but  he  was  fore- 
stalled by  its  unlawful  adjournment.  The  first  relates  to  the 
gist  of  the  Reformers'  offence,  as  the  committee  of  prosecution 
phrased  it:  "But  the  prosecution  insisted  'that  every  religious 
community  has  a  right  to  form  its  own  discipline,'  and,  said 

1  "  Instrument  of  Association  to^jether  with  the  General  Rules  of  Messrs.  John 
and  Charles  Wesley,  and  the  additional  regulations  prepared  by  the  Associated 
Methodist  Reformers  in  Baltimore."  Baltimore.  Matchett,  Printer.  1828.  8vo.  9pp. 


ARGUMENTATIVE  DEFENCE  OF  REFORMERS  153 


Mr.  Israel,  'its  members  are  not  at  liberty  to  disturb  it.'  Is  the 
charge,  in  view  of  this  particular,  raised  against  us  that  we  have 
denied  the  right  every  religious  community  has  to  form  its  own 
discipline?  When  did  we  do  this?  The  truth  is,  this  is  the 
right  for  which  we  are  contending.  But  they  will  say  the  charge 
is  for  'disturbing  it.'  And  have  we  disturbed  it?  According  to 
their  own  showing  it  is  by  calling  for  a  lay  delegation;  that  is, 
for  insisting  on  Mr.  Israel's  own  true  position,  that  'every  reli- 
gious community  has  a  right  to  form  its  own  discipline,'  that  we 
have  given  them  so  great  offence.  But  it  was  so  alleged,  that 
while  we  remain  members  of  the  church,  we  have  no  right  to 
form  and  be  members  of  the  Union  Society?  This  is  a  new 
charge.  And  we  beg  leave  to  ask  what  law  has  been  broken  by 
our  becoming  members  of  the  Union  Society?  Is  any  law  of  the 
Bible  or  any  rule  of  the  discipline  broken  by  it?  Where  shall  we 
find  such  a  law?"  And  second,  as  bearing  upon  the  withdrawal 
of  these  women  from  the  church :  "  Wretched  indeed  must  be  the 
state  of  a  community  when  the  fidelity  of  its  members  is  con- 
structed into  treason  against  the  body!  One  of  the  occasions 
stated  by  the  prosecution  for  the  adoption  of  their  course  against 
us  is  our  unyielding  adherence  to  the  Church!  Let  it  then  be 
written  with  a  pen  of  iron,  'they  say  they  will  not  withdraw  from 
the  church  !  '  Where  is  the  spirit  of  schism  so  often  imputed  to 
us?  Surely,  brethren,  not  on  the  part  of  the  accused,  but  on  the 
part  of  the  accusers ;  .  •  .  yes,  brethren,  our  prosecutors  have  be- 
come our  advocates;  have  acquitted  us  of  the  charge  of  schism, 
and  assumed  it  to  themselves.  They  are  engaged  in  making  a 
separation  which  is  of  no  ordinary  kind,  a  schism  which  is  in- 
tended with  the  most  unnatural  violence  to  sever  from  the  body 
many  of  its  most  devoted  members."^ 

This  much  of  the  argumentative  literature  of  the  Reformers  as 
offsetting  the  large  citation  made  of  their  opponents'  method  of 
reasoning.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  the  warp  and  woof  of  all  that 
could  be  offered,  from  Dr.  Bond  to  feebler  champions,  and  must 
answer  as  an  example  of  all.  The  justice  of  the  cause  so  appealed 
to  the  conscience  and  honor  of  right-thinking  Methodists,  that 
other  Union  Societies  were  formed  in  the  teeth  of  the  expulsions 

1  An  Address  intended  when  written  to  have  been  delivered  before  the  District 
Conference  of  the  Baltimore  District,  by  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  M.D.  Its  object 
was  to  show  that  the  prosecutions  which  had  been  instituted  against  the  local 
preachers,  etc.,  for  publishing  the  Mutual  Rights,  etc.,  are  unreasonable  and 
unjust  and  ought  to  be  dismissed.  Baltimore.  Printed  by  Samuel  Moss.  1828. 
8vo.    24  pp. 


154 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


and  in  prospect  of  their  own  excommunication.  On  Great  Falls' 
circuit,  Baltimore  County,  Md.,  a  Society  of  great  influence  was 
formed,  with  Charles  Jessop,  Esq.,  President;  Rev.  Daniel 
Chambers,  Vice;  Rev.  Amon  Richards,  Secretary;  Edward  Hall, 
Treasurer;  and  Rev.  Eli  Henkle,  E.  Hall,  and  Samuel  Willis, 
Corresponding  Committee.  February  14,  1828,  a  number  of 
members  of  Ebenezer  station,  Washington,  D.  C,  assembled  at 
Wheat^s  schoolhouse,  and  organized  a  Union,  with  Rev.  J.  B. 
Ferguson,  Chairman,  and  Peter  M.  Pierson,  Secretary,  with  W.  D. 
Aikin  and  Thomas  Wheat  as  a  committee.  The  Steubenville 
and  Cincinnati  societies  were  greatly  augmented,  and  passed  ring- 
ing resolutions  of  cheer  to  Dorsey  and  the  Baltimore  expelled. 
It  may  be  that  the  bold  front  of  the  Reformers  called  for  an  inter- 
mission of  trials  and  exclusions  until  after  the  General  Confer- 
ence ;  intimidation  did  not  accomplish  its  purpose,  so  both  parties 
largely  held  a  truce  and  slept  upon  their  arms  until  May,  1828, 
except  that  at  the  meeting  of  the  Baltimore  Annual  Conference  in 
April,  1828,  at  Carlisle,  Pa.,  charges  were  preferred  against  Rev. 
W.  C.  Pool;  he  was  tried  and  expelled,  the  methods  employed 
not  differing  essentially  from  those  in  the  case  of  Dorsey;  but  it 
linked  his  name  with  that  of  the  latter  immemorially  as  "  martyrs 
for  the  principle  of  a  lay-representation  in  the  legislative  depart- 
ment of  the  ^Methodist  Episcopal  Church  government."  ^ 

The  expelled  also  addressed  a  Memorial  to  the  Annual  Con- 
ference in  which  they  recite  their  case  and  ask  the  Conference  to 
"  interpose  and  restore  us  to  the  enjoyment  of  our  former  standing 
in  the  Church  of  our  choice  and  our  affections,  and  from  which  we 
have  been  unnaturally  severed;  "  and  that  "justice  and  propriety 
demand  your  immediate  investigation  of  the  official  conduct  of 
the  Rev.  James  M.  Hanson  and  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Frye,  in  refer- 
ence to  our  particular  cases."  The  Conference  made  answer  by 
resolutions  that  as  the  appellants  "  did  not  obey  the  citations  of 
the  Church  to  appear  before  inferior  judicatories  .  .  .  they  are  not 
entitled  to  come  before  higher  judicatories,  either  as  appellants 
or  complainants,"  that  "to  sanction  a  contrary  course  of  proceed- 
ings would  be,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Conference,  subversive  of 
wholesome  and  sound  discipline,"  and  hence  "decline  to  take 
further  cognizance  of  the  subjects."  The  answer  bears  the  liter- 
ary and  other  ear-marks  of  Dr.  Emory,  who  took  an  active  part 

1  Jennings's  "  Exposition,"  pp.  211)-223,  as  well  as  the  Mutual  Rir/hts  and  Chris- 
tian Intelligencer  for  1828,  give  a  full  account  of  the  particulars  of  Pool's  trial 
and  expulsion. 


EEFOBMERS  APPEAL  TO  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  155 


in  the  trial  of  Pool  and  in  the  review  of  the  Memorial  of  the 
Expelled.  Thus  their  appeal  was  summarily  dismissed,  no 
account  being  taken  of  the  irregular  methods  of  the  prosecution 
and  the  reasons  of  the  expelled  for  declining  to  appear  before 
judicatories  which  had  confessedly  already  decided  their  cases  — 
indeed,  no  inquiry  seems  to  have  been  made  into  the  conduct  of 
the  prosecution  whatever.  The  irregularities  of  the  expelled 
exclude  them  from  redress,  admitting  that  they  were  irregular; 
the  irregularities  of  the  prosecution  are  not  even  inquired  into, 
their  irregularity  being  patent  under  the  law. 

But  one  other  method  was  left  them :  an  appeal  to  the  General 
Conference,  which  was  at  once  formulated.  It  is  a  calm,  judicial, 
and  respectful  petition,  in  which  they  rehearse  the  whole  story 
of  the  Reform  with  brevity,  as  steps  leading  to  the  unprecedented 
method  of  their  investigation  and  expulsion.  They  ask  with 
unanswerable  force :  "  Who  ever  heard  of  the  organization  of  a 
prosecuting  committee  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  con- 
sisting of  seven  members?  When  was  there  ever  such  a  convo- 
cation of  members  of  the  Church  for  the  purpose  of  arraying 
themselves  as  prosecutors  against  another  party  in  the  Church? 
The  measure  was  so  new,  and  so  inconsistent  with  all  our  former 
acquaintance  with  Methodism,  that  we  were  apprehensive  our 
prosecutors  had  been  encouraged  thereto  by  some  persons  in  high 
authority  in  the  Church.  .  .  .  Finally,  brethren,  your  memo- 
rialists respectfully  represent  to  the  General  Conference  that,  as 
we  have  been  expelled  from  the  Church,  contrary,  as  we  believe, 
to  Scripture  and  the  Discipline,  and  which  expulsion  has  been 
and  is  still  painful  to  our  hearts,  we  do  hereby  request  your 
highly  respectable  body  to  take  such  measures  as  in  your  wisdom 
shall  restore  us  to  the  Church  of  our  former  fellowship,  and  receive 
with  us  those  who  have  withdrawn  on  our  account,  on  principles 
which  •'shall  secure  to  us  and  the  Church  the  liberty  of  speech  and 
of  the  press,  without  sanctioning  the  licentiousness  of  either,"  etc. 

Meantime  the  announced  review  of  McCaine's  "History  and 
Mystery,"  by  John  Emory,  made  its  appearance  in  November  or 
December,  1827,  and  created  a  sensation  in  the  Church  as  much 
more  intense  as  its  circulation  under  the  official  imprimatur  of 
the  Book  Concern  was  necessarily  greater  than  that  of  McCaine's 
pamphlet,  which  was  confined  to  a  single  edition  of  probably  not 
over  one  thousand  copies,  judging  from  its  rarity  to-day,  as  the 
opponents  of  Reform  used  diligence  in  destroying  every  copy  they 
could  control.    It  was  hailed  with  delight  by  the  supporters  of 


156  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  old  regime  as  vindicating  the  "  Fathers  "  in  everything  against 
the  alleged  aspersions,  slanders,  misrepresentations,  and  perver- 
sions of  fact  made  by  McCaine,  and  it  engendered  a  prejudice, 
not  to  say  hatred,  of  his  very  name  that  followed  him  through 
life  by  those  who  had  never  read  the  "History  and  Mystery," 
and,  perhaps,  never  heard  of  his  masterful  "  Defence  of  the  Truth, ''^ 
which  about  a  year  after  he  gave  to  the  press,  and  which  was  so 
complete  in  its  answer  to  Emory's  "Defence  of  our  Fathers"^ 
that  he  never  attempted  a  pamphlet  rejoinder.  He  offered  some 
strictures  and  made  the  correction  of  a  few  errors  in  his  "  Defence  " 
which  were  so  palpable  that  his  friends  called  for  their  elimina- 
tion. This  was  done  in  an  excusatory  manner,  not  through  the 
Christian  Advocate,  of  wide  circulation,  but  through  the  Methodist 
Eeview,  1830,  p.  217,  of  very  limited  circulation,  so  that  such 
answer  as  he  essayed  never  became  known  to  any  considerable 
number  in  the  Church,  and  justified  the  avowal  of  McCaine  and 
his  friends  that  the  "Defence  of  the  Truth"  had  never  been 
answered,  much  less  refuted.  Nor  was  any  serious  attempt  made 
to  so  collocate  the  facts  of  early  American  Methodism  as  to  spe- 
ciously accomplish  what  Emory  failed  to  do;  to  wit,  make  it 
appear  that  Wesley  was  cognizant  of  and  approved  all  the  steps 
that  led  to  the  organization  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  1784,  and  that  he  "recommended"  specifically  to  that  Confer- 
ence the  "  Episcopal  form  of  government,"  until  it  was  undertaken 
by  Eev.  Dr.  Stevens  in  his  "  History  of  Methodism  "  ^  in  1859. 
He  devotes  an  entire  chapter  to  it  of  seventeen  pages,  which  was 
republished  as  an  appendix  to  Tyerman's  "Life  of  Wesley," 
issued  by  the  Harpers  in  1872,  it  being  universally  accepted 
as  exhaustive  of  the  argument  on  that  side,  and  as  offsetting 
Tyerman,  who,  without  knowing  anything  of  McCaine's  "  History 
and  Mystery,"  thoroughly  established  the  moral  certainty  that  it 
correctly  represents  the  facts  in  the  case.  McCaine  was  twitted 
because  his  "  Defence  of  the  Truth  "  did  not  appear  in  answer  to 

1  "  A  Defence  of  *  Our  Fathers,'  and  of  the  original  organization  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church  against  the  Rev.  Alexander  McCaine,  and  others,  with 
Historical  and  Critical  Notes  on  early  American  Methodism,"  by  John  Emory, 
New  York.  Published  by  N.  Bangs  and  J.  Emory  for  the  M.  E.  Church  at  the 
Conference  office,  Crosby  Street.  Azor  Hoyt,  Printer.  1827.  8vo.  92  pp.  It 
contains  an  Appendix,  by  N.  Bangs,  who  took  occasion  to  explain  his  views  on 
Dr.  Coke's  letter,  and  his  idea  of  orders  in  the  M.  E.  Church  as  set  forth  in  his 
"  Methodist  Episcopacy,"  issued  about  a  year  before  against  the  opposition  of 
Soule,  then  Book  Agent,  with  Bangs  as  assistant,  for  reasons  evidently  that  it 
makes  admissions  contrary  to  Soule's  notions  of  Epi.scopacy. 

2  "  History  of  Methodism,"  Vol.  II.  Chap.  7. 


DEFENCE  OF  OUR  FATHERS''  BF  EMORY  157 

Emory  for  more  than  a  year.  The  facts  are  that  when  Emory's 
pamphlet  appeared,  McCaine  was  in  the  South  for  his  health,  by 
order  of  his  physician,  and  could  not  devote  himself  to  an  answer 
earlier;  but  this  his  enemies  ignored. 

Though  the  first  volume  has  covered  in  divers  places  much  of 
the  staple  of  the  controversy,  it  seems  necessary,  now  that  all 
three  of  the  disputants,  McCaine,  Emory,  and  Stevens,  have  ex- 
pended their  strength,  McCaine  reviewing  the  case  as  late  as 
1850  in  his  "  Letters  on  the  Organization  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,"  that  a  separate  chapter  should  be  given  in  this 
work  to  a  fair  analysis  of  the  ancient  contention;  for  though 
nothing  really  but  a  side  issue  in  the  controversy  as  to  Lay- 
Kepresentation  in  1827-30,  the  truth  of  history  demands  that 
the  issue  having  been  raised,  it  should  be  settled  for  or  against 
McCaine  as  the  originator  of  it.  It  will  best,  however,  preserve 
the  order  of  events,  if  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  be  devoted 
to  the  General  Conference  of  1828,  and  so  close  this  important 
epoch  in  the  history  of  Eeform. 

Only  one  other  fact  seems  needful  before  proceeding  to  this 
task.  The  Pittsburgh  Conference  had  resolved  upon  establish- 
ing a  college  at  Uniontown,  Pa.,  and  as  the  buildings  were 
there  already,  under  President  Madison's  liberality,  these  were 
accepted;  and  though  Bascom  was  fully  known  as  a  pronounced 
Reformer  throughout  that  Conference,  so  inimical  to  Reform 
in  the  main,  he  was  elected  President  in  1827,  and  he  labored 
hard  to  establish  it  for  two  years.  As  has  been  found,  it 
was  the  method  of  the  anti-reformers  in  the  case  of  preachers 
of  eminent  ability  to  win  them  from  their  Reform  attachments 
by  promoting  them,  while  weaker  and  unknown  men  were  ex- 
pelled for  such  an  alliance.  M.  M.  Henkle,  the  biographer  of 
Bascom,  gives  unwittingly  a  reason  for  the  non-success  of  Bascom 
in  this  enterprise,  but  which  establishes  the  predicate  that  Reform 
was  then  a  powerful  factor  in  the  Church.  Henkle  says :  "  The 
church  controversy  was  just  then  at  its  height,  and  the  dissentient 
partisans  would  not  harmonize  in  supporting  an  institution  which 
each  party  feared  might  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  other."  He 
also  gives  the  true  reason  for  Bascom's  resignation,  "The  want 
of  adequate  compensation  had  much  influence  in  superinducing 
Bascom's  resignation  is  highly  probable;"  and  Henkle  shows 
that  from  1814,  oppressed  with  debt  for  himself  and  his  father's 
family,  he  was  compelled  to  resort  to  devious  shifts  to  extricate 
himself  for  long  years  afterward. 


158  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  General  Conference  of  1828  met  in  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May  1, 
and  was  attended  by  Bishops  M'Kendree,  George,  Eoberts,  Soule, 
and  Hedding;  religious  services  by  the  senior  Bishop.  There 
were  strong  men  in  the  delegations,  and  a  few  of  the  pronounced 
Reformers  were  elected  by  reason  of  their  personal  popularity. 
It  may  be  well  to  note  the  names  of  Nathan  Bangs,  John  Emory, 
Heman  Bangs,  and  Daniel  Ostrander  from  New  York;  George 
Pickering,  Wilbur  Fisk,  Daniel  Dorchester  from  New  England; 
George  Peck,  Morgan  Sherman,  and  Seth  Mattison  from  Genesee ; 
Henry  Furlong,  Asa  Shinn,  Henry  B.  Bascom,  Thornton  Fleming, 
and  Charles  Elliott  from  Pittsburgh;  Jacob  Young,  James  B. 
Finley,  Greenbury  E,.  Jones,  and  James  Quinn  from  Ohio;  Peter 
Cartwright,  James  Armstrong,  and  Samuel  H.  Thompson  from 
Illinois ;  Thomas  A.  Morris,  Peter  Akers,  and  Richard  Tidings 
from  Kentucky;  James  Gwin,  James  M'Ferrin,  Robert  Paine^ 
and  Ashley  B.  Roszel  from  Tennessee;  William  Winans,  John  C. 
Burress  from  Mississippi;  James  A.  Andrew,  William  Capers, 
Lovick  Pierce,  and  Samuel  Dunwody  from  South  Carolina;  Joseph 
Carson,  Peter  Doub,  and  John  Early  from  Virginia;  Stephen  G. 
Roszel,  Nelson  Reed,  Joshua  Wells,  Joseph  Frye,  Henry  Smith, 
John  Davis,  James  M.  Hanson,  Beverly  Waugh,  Andrew  Hemp- 
hill, Job  Guest,  Marmaduke  Pierce,  and  Christopher  Frye  from 
Baltimore,  —  all  now  pronounced  anti-reformers;  Ezekiel  Cooper, 
Lawrence  M'Combs,  Charles  Pittman,  James  Smith,  Joseph  Ly- 
brand,  and  George  Woolley  from  Philadelphia. 

The  Episcopal  Address  notes  "the  great  and  extensive  revivals 
of  religion  in  the  past  three  years,"  an  unwitting  testimony  that 
the  agitation  of  Reform  within  the  Church  had  not  deteriorated 
its  spiritual  power.  The  last  year,  "  ending  with  this  date,  has 
been  peculiarly  distinguished  by  the  abundant  outpouring  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  the  increase  both  in  the  ministry  and  member- 
ship." It  does  not  occur  to  them  that  this  may  be  a  token  of  the 
Divine  favor  upon  the  movement  to  make  its  government  more 
scriptural,  rational,  and  in  accord  with  Christian  manhood;  and 
the  pertinence  of  this  suggestion  will  appear  when  the  church 
historians  give  these  same  things  as  infallible  signs  that  when 
the  Church  was  "  defecated  "  of  its  Reform  element,  and  later  of 
its  Abolition  element,  the  Divine  approval  was  thereby  put  upon 
the  expulsive  methods  to  shut  them  out.  Inquiry  is  suggested 
as  to  the  "right  of  all  the  members  to  trial  and  appeal,  .  .  . 
sacredly  secured  by  the  acts  of  the  General  Conference  of  1808," 
and  whether  there  is  anything  in  tlie  Discipline  "  which  may  be 


M.  E.  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1828 


159 


construed  or  applied  so  as  to  militate  against  such  acts;  and  if 
so  to  remedy  the  evil."  The  reader  will  not  understand  that  this 
proposal  looks  to  better  security  for  the  membership,  but  it  looks 
to  the  utter  inconsistency  of  the  fundamental  of  the  Church  law, 
that  expulsion  can  take  place  only  for  immorality  or  such  offences 
as  are  "  sufficient  to  exclude  the  offender  from  the  kingdom  of 
grace  and  glory."  The  Conference  is  invited  to  look  into  the 
"administration  of  the  government,  to  see  if  it  has  been  in 
accordance  with  the  strictness  and  purity  of  our  system,"  — 
another  menace  to  Reformers  from  the  bench  of  bishops. 

The  case  of  Rev.  George  Brown  and  Bishop  Hedding  has  been 
heretofore  noticed.  The  latter  charged  the  former  with  ''in- 
justice," "misrepresentation,"  and  "vile  slander"  in  his  "Tim- 
othy" article  in  the  Mutual  Rights  of  1826  upon  the  Bishop's 
Address  before  the  Pittsburgh  Conference.  At  its  session  in  1827 
Bishop  George  acted  as  pacificator  between  them,  and  though  Dr. 
Brown  had  the  concurrent  testimony  of  eighteen  ministers  and 
others  who  had  heard  the  Bishop's  Address  and  had  read  Brown's 
article  in  review  of  it,  that  no  such  charges  could  be  made  to  hold 
against  him,  nevertheless  Dr.  Brown,  to  meet  the  pacific  purpose 
of  Bishop  George,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  of 
1827,  in  which  he  admits  that  he  might  have  misunderstood  the 
purpose  of  the  Bishop,  but  firmly  insists  that  he  was  not  guilty 
of  injustice,  or  misrepresentation,  or  vile  slander  in  his  article. 
After  the  decease  of  Bishop  Hedding,  Dr.  Clark,  his  biographer, 
made  a  very  unfair  and  exaggerated  statement  of  the  case,  to  the 
injury  of  Dr.  Brown  wherever  Clark's  account  would  be  believed. 
Happily  Dr.  Brown  lived,  in  his  "Itinerant  Life,"^  to  traverse 
calmly  the  whole  subject  and  vindicate  himself  from  the  aspersions 
poured  upon  him.  Hedding  brought  it,  however,  to  the  attention 
of  the  General  Conference,  through  a  report,  which  likewise  mis- 
states the  kind  of  "  reparation  "  Dr.  Brown  had  offered,  resolved 
that  the  Bishop  was  not  "deserving  of  censure"  in  his  Address, 
"but  the  circumstances  of  the  case  rendered  it  his  official  duty  to 
deliver  it."  Hedding  and  Brown  had  been  confidential  friends, 
and  these  relations  were  resumed  at  the  General  Conference  in 
Cincinnati  in  1836.  Dr.  Clark  may  not  have  known  of  this,  but 
his  resurrection  of  the  matter  in  the  biography,  and  his  mode  of 
statement  of  it,  were  altogether  uncalled  for  and  unwarranted. 
Dr. Bangs,  in  his  "History,"  reviewing  the  Reform  agitation, 

1  Pages  129-163.  Also  Clark's  "  Biography,"  and  the  General  Conference  Re- 
port on  the  subject. 


160  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


referring  to  the  Bond-Kelso  section,  was  utterly  misled  in  his 
averments  that  the  leaders  had  once  agreed  to  place  their  claims 
upon  the  ground  of  expediency  alone,  and  that  the  strife  occurred 
by  forsaking  this  ground  for  that  of  right.  Evidently  he  relied 
for  his  information  upon  Dr.  Bond,  for  the  whole  course  of  the 
events,  as  has  been  shown,  is  that  right  and  not  expediency  was 
the  rallying  cry  of  all  true  Keformers.  His  whole  statement  of 
the  case  is  partisan  in  the  extreme. 

All  eyes  were  directed  to  the  General  Conference  of  1828. 
Not  a  few  of  the  active  participants  in  reform  and  anti-reform 
attended.  Though  the  distance  from  Baltimore  was  two  hundred 
and  eighty  miles,  when  travel  was  by  post-chaise  and  over  the 
mountains  by  the  National  Road,  Dr.  Bond  was  present  to  steer 
the  proceedings  against  the  Reformers,  instigated  by  himself 
as  their  Mephistopheles.  Shinn  and  Bascom  were  members. 
Dr.  Sellers  now  lived  in  Pittsburgh.  George  Brown  and  Cor- 
nelius Springer,  representatives  of  Reform  among  the  ministers 
in  the  West,  were  also  present.  Roszel  and  Emory  were 
members.  They  could  not  but  meet,  and  meeting,  pacification 
was  again  brought  forward.  Several  weeks  before  the  General 
Conference  had  convened,  friends  of  Reform,  and  of  the  Reformers 
about  Pittsburgh,  gave  the  expelled  brethren  of  Baltimore  notice 
that  they  would  inaugurate  a  movement  for  their  restoration  upon 
honorable  terms.  To  this  intimation  Dr.  Jennings  made  answer 
that  such  a  restoration  was  desirable,  if  It  could  be  secured, 
"  together  with  such  an  acknowledgment  of  our  rights  and  privi- 
leges as  our  friends  may  consider  a  satisfactory  guarantee  for 
our  safety,  and  which,  of  course,  will  make  our  return  honor- 
able." Accordingly,  a  Memorial  was  prepared,  dated  Pittsburgh, 
May  19,  1828,  and  addressed  to  Rev.  Daniel  Ostrander,  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  the  Itinerancy,  to  the  following  effect :  — 

Dear  Brethren  :  The  brethren  who  have  been  expelled  the  Church  in 
Baltimore,  will  and  do  hereby  concede  that  publications  may  have  appeared 
in  the  Mutual  Rights,  the  nature  and  character  of  which  was  inflammatory, 
and  so  far  do  not  admit  of  vindication  ;  that  individuals  and  facts  from  want 
of  proper  information  may  have  been  unintentionally  misrepresented.  They 
regret  these  things  in  every  existing  case.  They  agi-ee  that  the  Mutual  Rights 
shall  be  discontinued  at  the  filling  up  of  the  present  volume,  in  doing  which 
they  will  avoid  just  cause  of  offence  to  any  brethren.  That  Union  Societies 
shall,  by  their  advice  and  influence,  be  abolished,  and  no  more  be  formed. 
These  concessions  are  made  through  us  in  behalf  of  Reformers  generally,  to 
aid  in  the  work  of  conciliation  as  conditions  for  the  restoration  of  the  ex- 
pelled brethren  in  Baltimore,  and  elsewhere  to  the  Church  on  terms  respect- 


G  UILEFUL  CONCILIA  TOR  Y  MO  YEMEN  T 


161 


ful  to  both  parties.  By  these  concessions  they  are  not  to  be  understood  as 
relinquishing  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  which  they  enjoy  in 
common  with  their  brethren,  nor  of  peacefully  assembling  for  proper  and 
justifiable  purposes. 

[Signed]  A.  Shinn. 

H.  B.  Bascom. 

We  concur  in  the  above. 

Nicholas  Snethen. 
Charles  Avert. 
Henry  D.  Sellers.^ 

As  printed  in  the  Mutual  Bights  for  June,  1828,  the  word  may 
is  twice  italicized,  and  the  concluding  sentence  from  these 
CONCESSIONS,  printed  in  small  caps;  whether  so  in  the  original 
no  means  are  at  hand  to  verify.  Considering  the  heat  of  the 
controversy  and  the  wrongs  under  which  they  were  suffering, 
much  is  hereby  conceded;  but  after  several  days  answer  was 
returned  that  the  "subject  was  not  cognizable  by  the  committee." 
Advantage  was,  however,  taken  of  the  concessions  by  Dr.  Emory 
in  his  final  elaborate  report  upon  the  whole  subject,  to  make  it 
appear  that  "the  General  Conference  granted  everything  we 
[the  Keformers]  asked  for ;  that  they  have  proffered  to  us  resto- 
ration on  our  own  terms."  ^  It  will  be  seen  from  the  resolutions 
passed  by  the  General  Conference  that  the  terms  are  almost 
identical  with  those  proposed  by  Dr.  Bond,  and  afterward  by 
him  through  Dr.  Green;  and  that  the  former's  adroit  manoeu- 
vring is  seen  in  all  this  part  of  the  report :  the  terms  are  uncon- 
ditional submission  with  the  right  of  the  Church  officials  to 
discriminate  among  Reformers,  undoubtedly  for  the  guileful  pur- 
pose of  breaking  their  unity  by  receiving  such  as  they  would, 
but  excluding  the  leaders.  More  than  ever  it  was  made  apparent 
that  no  step  taken  was  to  be  retraced,  and  that  no  wrong  done  was 
to  be  redressed;  but  a  final  manifesto  issued  that  should  crush  out 
the  element  remaining  and  smother  the  very  germs  of  lay-repre- 
sentation once  for  all.  For  the  fairness  and  legitimacy  of  this 
inference,  appeal  is  made  to  the  candid  reader,  and  for  evidence 
nothing  more  need  be  offered  than  the  Eeport  and  the  Eesolu- 
tions  of  the  Conference,  both  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  John  Emory. ^ 

Before  considering  them,  happily  the  writer  has  it  in  his  power 
to  present  a  pen-picture  of  the  scene  in  the  Conference,  which 
preceded  their  introduction,  in  the  argument  upon  the  appeal  of 
Dennis  B.  Dorsey  and  W.  C.  Pool  from  the  decision  of  the  Bal- 

1  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  321-327.   Jennings's  "  Exposition,"  pp.  77-83. 

2  See  Conference  Minutes,  or  Dr.  Bangs's  "History,"  Vol.  III.  pp.  413-430. 

vol.  II — M 


162 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


timore  Conference  in  1827-28.  Rev.  George  Brown,  who  was  an 
eye  and  ear  witness,  graphically  and  —  no  one  who  knew  him 
personally  will  doubt  —  truthfully  depicted  the  scene.  "Neither 
of  these  brethren  could  be  present,  so  they  had  committed  the 
management  of  their  appeals  to  Eev.  Asa  Shinn,  and,  if  I  remem- 
ber aright,  Rev.  Wilbur  Fisk  was  appointed  by  the  Conference 
to  assist  him.  The  case  came  on  in  the  morning,  and  was  opened 
by  Mr.  Shinn,  who  represented  the  appellants  by  reading  the 
grounds  of  their  appeal  as  set  forth  by  themselves  in  writing. 
Then  the  members  of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  according  to  the 
forms  of  law  governing  in  such  cases,  responded,  justifying  the 
action  of  their  Conference  in  the  expulsions.  This  brought  on 
the  hour  of  adjournment  for  dinner.  That  day  I  dined  with  Mr. 
Shinn.  He  ate  but  little,  conversed  none,  but  his  great  soul  was 
full  of  thought  and  prayer.  At  two  o'clock  the  case  was  resumed, 
and  there  was  a  full  house  to  hear  Mr.  Shinn  make  the  closing 
argument.  I  sat  back  without  the  bar  to  take  down  in  writing 
the  main  points  of  said  argument.  When  Mr.  Shinn  arose  and 
stood  in  silence  for  a  few  moments  the  whole  assembly  became 
very  still.  He  was  pale,  calm,  self-possessed,  and  very  dignified 
in  appearance.  He  commenced  his  argument  with  a  clear,  round 
tone  of  voice,  evidently  reaching  every  ear  in  the  house.  His 
exordium  was  simple,  modest,  chaste  —  going  to  show  that  all  he 
wished  for  in  behalf  of  the  appellants  was  that  the  truth  might 
shine,  that  justice  might  he  done.  The  facts  of  the  case  and  the 
laws  of  the  Church  were  then  most  searchingly  examined,  and  it 
was  made  distinctly  to  appear  that  the  expulsions  were  without 
the  sanction  of  the  laws  of  the  Church.  He  then  made  it  clear, 
from  all  the  evidence  in  that  high  court  of  appeals,  that  the 
charges  against  the  appellants  in  the  court  below  were  not  in 
themselves  criminal  actions.  He  then  took  the  written  appeal 
sent  up  by  the  expelled  brethren,  and  argued  the  truthfulness  and 
justice  of  the  paper  in  all  its  parts.  He  then  appealed  to  the 
justice  and  honor  and  impartiality  of  that  high  tribunal,  and 
urged,  with  all  the  force  of  his  logical  energy,  the  restoration  of 
the  appellants  to  their  places  in  the  Church,  and  to  the  public 
confidence.  In  the  peroration  the  speaker  became  overwhelmingly 
eloquent  and  swept  defiantly  over  the  enemies  of  mutual  rights. 
The  effect  upon  that  great  assembly  was  thrilling.  The  bishops, 
generally  florid,  now  looked  pale.  Ex-Governor  Findley  of 
Pennsylvania,  who  sat  in  the  gallery,  wept  like  a  child.  Many 
members  of  the  Conference  felt  like  the  Governor,  so  did  many 


shinn's  masterful  defence 


163 


spectators;  and  I  found  myself  unable,  some  time  before  the 
speech  was  ended,  to  take  any  more  notes. 

"  When  Mr.  Shinn  resumed  his  seat  there  was  a  long  pause  — 
a  time  to  take  breath.  The  bishops  and  other  leading  members 
of  the  Conference  looked  wisely  at  each  other.  Just  then  a  New 
England  preacher,  having  seen  me  writing,  came  round  to  me, 
and  said:  'Why  don't  the  . bishops  take  a  vote?  I  hate  Shinn 
like  tire,  but  I  never  heard  such  an  argument  before  in  my  life. 
If  they  will  put  the  vote  now  the  appellants  will  be  restored,  and 
the  Baltimoreans  defeated  —  and  they  ought  to  be  defeated.'  So 
thought  I  and  many  more  besides  that  New  England  preacher. 
But  the  vote  was  not  put  as  the  law  directed.  Rev.  John  Early 
and  other  Southern  preachers,  without  introducing  any  new  ques- 
tion, were  suffered  to  run  a  tirade  against  Mr.  Shinn  most  of  the 
afternoon  for  a  piece  in  the  Mutual  Eights,  published  by  him, 
entitled  'Sovereignty  of  Methodism  in  the  South.'  To  this  dis- 
orderly ramble  Mr.  Shinn  made  no  reply,  as  it  had  no  relation  to 
the  question  before  the  Conference.  Finally,  the  Chair  announced 
that  the  vote  would  be  taken  in  the  morning.  From  that  moment 
the  Reformers  had  their  fears  of  foul  play.  That  evening  at 
supper,  at  the  house  of  John  McGill,  much  was  said  of  the  argu- 
mentative eloquence  of  Mr.  Shinn's  speech  that  afternoon.  Bishop 
Roberts,  who  sat  at  my  side,  said,  'Yes,  that  was  true  eloquence 
of  the  highest  order.'  He  then  added  that  'he  did  not  remember 
ever  to  have  heard  a  speech  surpassing  Mr.  Shinn's  for  argu- 
mentative eloquence.'  At  that  table,  however,  no  opinion  was 
expressed  as  to  how  the  vote  would  go  the  next  morning.  That 
night  about  eleven  o'clock  I  met  Mr.  Bascom  on  the  street,  who 
said:  'There  has  been  a  caucus  meeting  to-night,  and  I  have  been 
eavesdropping  them.  They  have  secured  a  majority  of  twenty 
pledged  on  paper  against  the  appellants.'  I  said,  'I  did  hope, 
for  the  honor  of  the  Christian  religion,  that  he  was  mistaken, ' 
but  he  affirmed  this  was  so,  and  said,  'you  will  see  to-morrow 
morning.'  In  the  morning  when  the  vote  was  taken  they  had 
about  that  majority  against  the  appellants  that  Bascom  had 
reported.  This  whole  affair  led  me  strongly  to  suspect  that 
Reformers  were  to  have  no  fair  dealing  in  that  General  Confer- 
ence. In  this  case  would  the  end  sanctify  the  means,  or  the 
means  sanctify  the  end?  Were  not  both  the  end  and  the  means 
wrong?  The  forms  of  law,  in  the  main,  had  been  allowed  during 
the  trial;  but  the  ends  of  justice  had  been  defeated  by  caucus 
management."  ^ 

1  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  pp.  166-169. 


164 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  liEFOEM 


The  reader  has  not  forgotten  the  dark-lantern  methods,  identi- 
cal with  these  just  disclosed,  by  which  a  full  two-thirds  majority, 
in  1820,  in  favor  of  an  elective  Presiding  Eldership  was  changed 
into  a  majority  against  it.  The  pacific  and  lenient  attitude  of 
the  General  Conference  under  the  searching  logic  and  persuasive 
eloquence  of  Shinn  had  its  marplot.  Not  a  few  of  the  same  par- 
tisans were  present,  M'Kendree  and  Soule  of  the  Episcopal  bench, 
and  their  fuglemen  in  the  delegations  reenforced  by  Dr.  Bond, 
a  strategist  tutored  in  all  the  guileful  arts  of  political  machina- 
tion. A  majority  of  about  twenty  pledged  on  paper  under  cover 
of  the  night,  intermediate  of  a  session.  Why  pledged  on  paper? 
For  the  same  reason  as  in  1820  —  that  there  might  be  no  shirk- 
ing, or,  if  so,  their  exposure  to  the  Episcopal  authorities  and 
their  quiet  punishment  afterward.  It  required  a  heroism  of  iron 
texture  to  withstand  such  menacing  consequences;  and  yet,  out 
of  a  body  of  177  a  majority  of  only  about  twenty  could  be  com- 
manded for  the  justification  of  the  expulsion  of  Dorsey  and  Pool, 
carrying  with  it  all  the  other  cases  constructively.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  result  was  an  overwhelming  disappointment  to 
Shinn  and  his  coadjutors.  His  effort  had  been  exhaustive,  not 
only  of  the  subject,  but  of  himself,  which  showed  itself  before 
the  session  closed  in  mental  fag  and  aberration,  superinduced  by 
the  early  physical  injury  to  his  head  already  referred  to,  and 
which  continued  for  about  six  months,  withdrawing  him  from 
active  ministerial  life  for  the  time.  If  never  conclusively  before 
demonstrated,  the  case  in  hand  was  a  fitting  illustration  of 
Snethen's  dictum,  which  needs  to  be  repeated  every  time  its 
demonstration  occurs  in  the  course  of  the  Episcopal  history,  — 
"Power  combined  with  interest  and  inclination  cannot  be  con- 
trolled by  logic;  but  even  power  shrinks  from  the  test  of  logic." 

Reserving  an  analysis  of  Dr.  Emory's  final  report  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Reform  to  the  succeeding  chapter,  and  in  association  with 
the  McCaine-Emory-Stevens  argument  on  the  Episcopacy  as  in 
some  sense  kindred,  and  that  the  present  chajjter  may  not  be 
unduly  lengthened,  a  few  other  salient  events  of  this  General 
Conference  shall  be  grouped  in  its  conclusion.  It  is  noteworth}" 
that  neither  Bangs  nor  M'Tyeire  gives  the  result  of  the  "sus- 
pended resolutions  "  of  1820-24,  but  Dr.  Tigert,  from  the  Journal, 
provides  the  information.  William  Winans  moved  and  William 
Capers  seconded  the  following  resolution :  "  That  the  resolutions 
commonly  called  the  suspended  resolutions,  rendering  the  presid- 
ing elders  elective,  etc.,  and  which  were  referred  to  this  Confer- 


MOliE  D AUK-LAN  TERN  PROCEEDINGS 


165 


cnce  by  the  last  General  Conference  as  unfinished  business  and 
reported  to  us  at  this  Conference,  be,  and  are  hereby,  rescinded 
and  made  void.  Carried."  The  vote  is  not  given,  but  it  was 
probably  a  snap-judgment,  as  the  next  day  D.  Ostrander  and  T. 
Merrett  "  bravely  brought  forward  the  old  measure ;  but  it  was 
promptly  tabled,  apparently  without  debate."  The  biographer 
of  Bishop  Emory  says  that  it  is  not  known  how  his  illustrious 
father  voted,  "  nor,  if  known,  would  it  afford  evidence  as  to  the 
state  of  his  opinion  on  the  abstract  question."  Undoubtedly  he 
was  now  in  the  direct  line  of  promotion,  and,  as  has  been  found 
and  will  again  and  again  be  found  in  these  pages,  it  is  as  common 
as  history  that  illumination  should  go  hand  in  hand  with  prefer- 
ment. "  Men  have  a  right  to  change  their  opinions ; "  certainly 
they  have  the  right.  If  he  were  not  a  "  Radical,"  this  was  the  one 
point  in  Methodist  reformation  which  his  gifted  son  Robert  makes 
plain  on  which  he  had  not  opinions  only,  but  convictions.  As 
opinions  it  can  be  understood  how  he  could  waive  them ;  but  it  will 
ever  remain  to  be  explained  how  he  got  rid  of  his  convictions  on 
this  occasion,  and  never  once  broached  them  again  to  the  close  of 
his  brief,  but  useful  life.  Thus  a  reasonable  ministerial  right 
was  smothered  to  its  death,  and  not  revived  again  until  1840. 

This  General  Conference,  on  a  paper  submitted  by  Wilbur 
risk,  changed  one  of  its  Restrictive  Rules  as  follows:  "Pro- 
vided, nevertheless,  that  upon  concurrent  recommendation  of 
three-fourths  of  all  the  members  of  the  several  annual  confer- 
ences who  shall  be  present  and  vote  for  such  recommendation, 
then  a  majority  of  two-thirds  of  the  General  Conference  succeed- 
ing shall  suffice  to  alter  any  such  regulations,  excepting  the  first 
article."  This  made  it  possible  for  the  legislative  body  of  the 
Church  to  effect  changes  in  its  organic  law,  though  by  a  circum- 
scription which  practically  ignores  even  a  two-thirds  majority  of 
the  preachers  (it  leaves  undisturbed  their  ancient  right  to  exclu- 
sive legislative  powers),  without  the  call  of  a  Convention  of  the 
Church;  and  for  this  no  provision  whatever  was  ever  made,  and 
yet  these  rules  and  regulations  of  1808  are  called  a  "  constitu- 
tion!" Again,  the  deadlock  of  the  bishops  in  1826,  as  to  the 
appointment  of  a  fraternal  messenger  to  the  Wesleyan  Confer- 
ence, divided  as  they  already  were  upon  the  slavery  question, 
was  reported  to  this  Conference.  The  same  candidates  over  whom 
they  wrangled  were  brought  forward,  and  the  contest  was  as  close 
as  when  the  bishops  wrestled  with  them.  On  the  second  ballot, 
however,  Capers  received  82  and  Fisk  72  out  of  158  votes,  so  that 


166 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Capers  succeeded  by  a  majority  of  six,  or  two  more  than  the 
number  necessary  to  a  choice,  as  there  were  scattering  votes. 
He  was  warmly  received  in  England  and  discharged  his  mission 
satisfactorily,  but  his  election  was  unpalatable  to  the  growing 
antislavery  sentiment  of  the  Northern  brethren. 

The  Canada  Methodist  Episcopal  Conference,  after  much  dis- 
cussion, was  separated  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Con- 
ference at  their  request.  It  was  under  Asbury's  recognition,  but 
in  a  foreign  civil  jurisdiction.  It  complicated  the  situation  which 
Dr.  Emory  endeavored,  with  his  fertility  of  invention,  to  solve 
by  an  ingenious  "voluntary  theory,"  which  Dr.  Bangs  thinks 
put  it  "in  a  new  and  very  clear  light."  Dr.  Tigert  is  quizzically 
of  opinion  "that  it  was  new,  there  could  be  little  question;  its 
clearness  depends  somewhat  on  the  angle  of  vision."  Distance 
and  the  slavery  moot  led  to  this  disruption.  They  were  allowed 
their  "  annual  dividends  "  from  the  Xew  York  Book  Concern.  It 
was,  in  fact,  a  "secession,"  and  Tigert  says,  "we  are  not  aware 
that  this  hard  and  ugly  word  has  ever  been  applied  to  it."  No; 
it  was  reserved  for  the  separation  of  the  two  African  churches, 
the  Bethelites  and  the  Zionites,  the  Methodist  Protestants,  the 
Wesleyans,  and  the  Church  South.  It  was  a  memorable  General 
Conference,  and  fitly  closed  its  business  by  electing  Nathan 
Bangs  editor  of  the  Christian  Advocate,  and  promoting  Emory 
from  Assistant  to  Book  Agent,  with  Beverly  Waugh  as  his 
Assistant.  Ex-Reformers  were  popular  for  promotion,  that  is, 
certain  of  them.    The  Conference  adjourned  May  24,  1828. 


CHAPTER  X 


Report  of  the  committee  of  the  General  Conference  on  the  petitions  and  memo- 
rials for  Lay-Representation  written  by  Dr.  Emory  under  Dr.  Bond's  prompt- 
ings ;  analysis  of  it ;  Asa  Shinn's  motion  to  adopt ;  his  after  sane  repudiation 
of  it  —  Resolutions  of  restoration  of  the  expelled  and  the  withdrawn;  artful 
exceptions  in  the  phrasing  to  exclude  leaders,  etc.  —  A  careful  and  thorough 
review  of  McCaine's  "History  and  Mystery";  Emory's  "Defence  of  our 
Fathers " ;  McCaine's  rejoinders,  and  Dr.  Stevens's  famous  chapter  on  the 
Ordination  of  Dr.  Coke  in  his  "  History  of  the  M.  E.  Church  "  ;  a  candid  synop- 
sis of  each  of  these  arguments  as  the  knotty  and  perplexing  question  of  this 
ancient  controversy;  side  lights  thrown  upon  it;  McCaine's  thirty-seven  rea- 
sons for  his  opinion  never  successfully  controverted  ;  Wesley's  *'  Little  Sketch  " 
of  government  again  considered  —  The  so-called  historical  Preface  to  the  Disci- 
pline of  the  M.  E.  Church  must  be  amended  or  expunged,  as  demanded  by  the 
truth  of  history ;  already  done  in  that  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South  —  Dr.  Stevens's 
whole  argument  invalidated  by  a  single  admission  of  his  own. 

The  petitions  and  memorials  addressed  to  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1828  were  not  all  in  favor  of  Representation.  Knowing 
that  such  would  be  there  in  large  numbers,  it  was  a  part  of  the 
policy  of  the  anti-reformers  to  send  up  counter  petitions;  and  in 
some  sections  enough  male  members  were  found  of  the  Yearley- 
Israel  calibre  to  unite  in  such.  They  were  never  shown  to  be 
either  numerous  or  influential;  but  even  one  enabled  the  Com- 
mittee, of  which  Dr.  Emory  was  Chairman,  to  say  that  they  had 
considered  these  petitions  "  for  and  against  a  direct  lay  and  local 
representation."  The  writer  has  just  reread  this  elaborate  and 
exhaustive  Report,  yet  claimed  to  be  "  confined  to  a  few  leading 
topics,"  which  made  a  sensation  in  the  Conference  and,  afterward, 
throughout  the  Church,  equalled  only  by  the  speech  of  Shinn, 
defensive.  One  thing  is  evident  upon  its  perusal,  that  Dr.  Emory 
either  called  into  his  council  of  preparation  Dr.  Bond,  or  he  had 
ingeniously  employed  not  a  few  of  the  points  of  the  latter's 
"Appeal  to  the  Methodists,"  inasmuch  as  it  traverses  much  of 
the  same  ground.  The  acute  legal  mind  of  Emory  runs  through 
it  in  the  sophistries  and  subtleties  of  its  arguments,  while  in 
rhetoric  the  classic  flow  of  its  well-rounded  sentences  is  captivat- 
ing, and  makes  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason.    It  should  be 

167 


168 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


read  by  every  one  desiring  to  be  informed  as  to  the  best  that 
could  be  delivered  antagonistic  to  Keformj  space  will  allow  but 
a  condensed  analysis. 

It  first  takes  up  the  question  of  Right,  and  declares  it  must  be 
either  "natural  or  acquired";  and  the  author  makes  it  plain  to 
himself  and  sympathizers  that  it  is  neither :  the  inference  is,  that 
joining  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  strips  a  man  of  all  that 
citizenship  in  a  republic  confers  upon  him.  It  had  already  been 
worn  threadbare  as  an  argument.  But  may  be  they  "claim  it 
against  the  judgment  of  a  large  majority,"  and  that  its  concession 
would  conciliate.  This  is  combated  by  the  assertion  that  no 
such  effect  would  follow,  as  the  opposition  in  the  ranks  of  the 
laity  was  immensely  against  it  and  that  of  the  most  intelligent. 
The  demands  of  the  local  preachers  is  shown  to  be  incongruous 
with  the  "original  economy  of  Methodism."  The  gist  of  it  is 
that  what  has  not  been,  should  not  be.  Admitting  that  the 
memorialists  are  honest  in  not  wishing  to  impair  the  "  itinerant 
economy,"  they  cannot  tell  what  their  successors  might  do.  The 
reader  can  judge  how  conclusive  this  objection  is  on  general  prin- 
ciples. Under  the  head  of  the  itinerants'  personal  interest  the 
most  remarkable  of  the  averments  is  made.  The  admission  is 
confessed  that  if  these  lay-rights  were  conceded  it  might  advance 
their  temporal  support,  but  it  "is  not  known  to  the  present 
economy"  (again,  what  has  not  been  should  not  be);  but  listen: 
"The  great  Head  of  the  Church  himself  has  imposed  on  us  the 
duty  of  preaching  the  gospel,  of  administering  its  ordinances,  and 
of  maintaining  its  moral  discipline  among  those  over  whom  the 
Holy  Ghost,  in  these  respects,  has  made  us  overseers.  Of  these 
also,  namely,  of  gospel  doctrines,  ordinances,  and  moral  disci- 
pline, we  do  believe  that  the  divinely  instituted  ministry  are  the 
divinely  authorized  expounders ;  and  that  the  duty  of  maintain- 
ing them  in  their  purity,  and  of  not  permitting  our  ministrations, 
in  these  respects,  to  be  authoritatively  controlled  by  others,  does 
rest  upon  us  with  the  force  of  a  moral  obligation,  in  the  due  dis- 
charge of  which  our  consciences  are  involved."  It  was  of  this 
particular  deliverance  that  Dr.  Brown  witnesses :  "A  very  learned 
and  sagacious  Catholic  priest  saw  in  this  manifesto  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  a  family  likeness,  and  published  it  in  the  Catholic 
Telegraph  in  Cincinnati,  declaring  that  the  Church  of  Rome  never 
made  a  higher  claim  to  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  power  than 
this."^ 

1  "Itinerant  Life,"  pp.  11)5,  196. 


EMORY'S  REPORT:  LORDLY  ASSUMPTIONS  169 


It  was  indeed  the  cap-sheaf  of  lordly  assumption,  and  settled  it 
with  the  Reformers  that  nothing  could  be  expected  of  the  ruling 
authorities  of  the  Church ;  progression  and  not  reaction  along  the 
lines  of  hierarchic  presumption  was  the  key-note  thus  set.  The 
sentences  criticised  afforded  the  Eeformers  other  epigrammatical 
slogans,  which  they  were  not  slow  in  utilizing.  The  succeeding 
paragraph  of  the  Report  is  a  hair-splitting  refinement  in  qualifi- 
cation of  the  bold  declaration  —  even  Emory  felt  that  the  ground 
taken  was  disputable.  "  The  right  of  ecclesiastical  expatriation 
from  any  branch  of  the  Christian  Church  to  any  other  which  may 
be  preferred,  for  grave  causes,  we  have  never  denied.  Nor  can 
we  keep,  nor  are  we  desirous  to  keep,  any  man  subject  to  our 
authority  one  moment  longer  than  it  is  his  own  pleasure."  If 
not  an  echo,  it  is  a  duplicate  of  Dr.  Bond;  it  says,  if  you  do 
not  like  our  rule,  leave  it  and  us.  It  appears,  therefore,  that 
laymen  and  others  have  at  least  this  right.  0' Kelly  and  his 
adherents  adopted  this  course,  and  were  stigmatized  as  "  seceders," 
and  he  was  pursued  with  rancor  to  his  death.  The  claim  is  now 
made,  that  it  was  the  distinctive  governmental  features  that 
ensured  the  success  of  Methodism  in  the  past;  innovation  had 
not  been  tried,  and,  therefore,  should  not  be ;  "  there  is  no  pros- 
pect of  gain  that  would  justify  the  hazard."  It  had  often  been 
urged  before,  and,  antecedently,  it  is  the  only  objection  that  has 
in  it  a  grain  of  weight. 

Paragraphs  following  "retort  the  insinuation  of  sinister 
motives,"  and  a  sarcastic  fling  is  made  at  those  "who  have 
deserted  the  itinerant  fields"  —  Snethen,  McCaine,  and  a  few 
others  who  were  now  located;  and  the  discussion  is  prolonged 
over  the  lack  of  precedents  for  the  changes  proposed  either  in 
England  or  America,  aiming  special  invidious  comment  upon  the 
inchoate  proposals  of  the  first  Reform  Convention,  the  paucity  of 
its  numbers  in  attendance,  and  the  strange  intimation  made,  that 
if  the  laity  were  accorded  representation  they  would  be  conspicu- 
ous only  by  their  absence  in  General  Conference.  The  fact  that 
the  Reformers,  out  of  deference  and  expediency,  declined  to 
send  with  their  petitions  a  formulated  scheme  of  reconstruction 
is  turned  against  them;  the  General  Conference,  forsooth,  had 
nothing  to  consider  as  to  a  plan,  verily!  Much  meekness  is 
claimed  for  not  repelling  with  "  strong  expressions  "  the  affirma- 
tion of  Reformers,  that  they  have  been  denied  the  liberty  of 
speech  and  of  the  press  under  the  provision  of  1796,  against 
"  sowing  dissensions  and  inveighing  against  the  discipline  "  that 


170 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  law  was  applied  only  "in  the  sense  of  unchristian  railing  and 
violence.  Any  other  construction  of  it  we  have  never  sanctioned, 
nor  will  we."  It  is  Dr.  Bond  reflected,  but  it  begs  the  Avhole 
question  involved :  Does  the  literature  of  Reform  give  evidence 
of  such  a  violation  of  the  law?  It  is  the  very  issue,  and  pos- 
terity will  never  consent  that  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press 
was  not  infringed  until  the  case  is  made  against  the  Reformers. 
Only  some  ten  years  ago  Dr.  Augustus  Webster  entertained  for 
a  few  days  a  distinguished  minister  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  who,  observing  in  the  doctor's  library  bound  copies  of 
the  Mutual  Rights,  asked  the  privilege  to  take  them  to  his  room 
and  examine  them  before  he  retired,  as  he  had  never  before  seen 
the  much  scandalized  volumes.  The  next  morning  he  returned 
them  with  the  playful  remark,  that  he  could  find  nothing  "  rail- 
ing" or  "violent"  in  them.  The  incident  was  told  the  writer 
by  the  doctor  himself. 

A  paragraph  is  used  to  show  that  the  want  of  analogy  between 
the  government  of  the  Church  and  the  State  so  far  from  being  an 
objection  is  a  virtue,  inasmuch  as  separation  of  the  Church  and 
State  is  a  cardinal  American  doctrine,  and  to  make  the  govern- 
ments analogous  would  be  the  surest  way  to  enable  politicians  to 
bring  about  such  a  union.  This  is  so  original  that  it  must  be 
passed  without  challenge.  The  presence  of  Union  Societies  in 
the  Church  is  now  discussed,  and  while  no  attempt  is  made  to 
show  that  they  were  in  contravention  of  any  known  section  of  the 
Discipline,  nevertheless,  as  their  purpose  was  to  secure  Reform 
by  propagation  of  new  principles  of  church  government,  they  are 
to  be  unsparingly  condemned  for  this  reason;  that  is,  what  has 
been  the  polity  shall  continue  to  be,  with  coercion  as  the  instru- 
ment, for  maintaining  uniform  opinion. 

Reserving  to  the  close  of  this  analysis  the  most  remarkable  of 
its  declarations,  astonishment  must  be  expressed  that  Dr.  Emory 
should  have  allowed  himself  to  be  betrayed  into  a  reproduction 
of  Dr.  Bond's  "purse-string"  argument  as  evincing  the  control 
the  laity  have  over  the  ministry;  but  he  was  at  his  elbow  in  the 
composition  of  the  Report.  Thus  it  is  put:  "the  envied  pittance 
of  those  who  now  devote  themselves  wholly  to  the  work,  and  are 
absolutely  dependent  for  daily  subsistence  on  the  mere  voluntary 
contributions  of  those  whom  they  serve  "  (a  check  on  their  power 
indeed!).  So  far  as  the  writer  has  knowledge,  however,  it  is  the 
last  appearance  of  a  suggestion  that  outrages  Christian  honor  and 
disciplinary  Law,  right-minded  brethren  recoiling  from  it  in  very 


ANALYSIS  OF  EMORY'S  REPORT 


171 


shame,  except  Dr.  Bond  —  he  kept  on  repeating  it  to  the  close  of 
his  last  editorial  term  of  the  Christian  Advocate. 

It  may  be  that  the  sarcasm  of  a  concluding  paragraph  of  the 
Report  was  not  observed  by  the  writer:  "We  might  add  much 
more,  but  the  time  fails  us.  We  entreat  our  brethren  to  be  at 
peace.  It  is  our  earnest  and  sincere  desire."  Kobert  Emory, 
in  the  "Life  of  Bishop  Emory,"  says,  "The  Report  was  adopted 
without,  it  is  believed,  a  dissenting  voice,  and  that,  too,  on  a 
motion  of  a  distinguished  leader  of  'Reform.'"  Bangs  says, 
"nearly  unanimously."  It  is  true  that  the  motion  to  adopt  was 
made  by  Asa  Shinn.  It  was  a  surprise  to  all  but  his  near  friends. 
It  was  evident  that  the  intense  mental  excitement  had  unhinged 
his  mind.  It  was  the  second  lapse  of  the  kind.  The  Advocate 
in  publishing  the  Report  italicizes  the  fact,  "on  motion  of  the  Rev. 
Asa  Shinn.^'  "Luther,"  W.  W.  Hill,  in  the  June  number  of  the 
Mutual  Bights,  uncovers  it  as  a  "pitiful  stratagem,"  and  adds, 
"should  it  please  God  to  restore  Mr.  Shinn  to  health,  he  will  no 
doubt  give  an  exhibit  of  this  extraordinary  report."  More  than 
a  year  afterward  Shinn,  having  fully  recovered  his  mental  poise, 
masterfully  dissected  the  Report  and  made  an  endeavor  to  explain 
his  motion  without  fully  admitting  the  true  cause  of  it.  It  was 
so  cogent  as  a  review  that  Emory,  as  editor  of  the  Methodist 
Magazine,  essayed  answer  to  it,  January,  1830. 

Following  the  Report  was  a  series  of  resolutions,  also  from 
Dr.  Emory's  pen,  which  were  "nearly  unanimously  adopted" 
also.  Who  the  bold  dissentients  were  is  not  now  known.  There 
were  not  a  half-dozen  pronounced  Reformers  in  the  Conference. 
By  methods  already  exposed  they  were  left  at  home.  The  resolu- 
tions recite :  "  This  General  Conference  affectionately  advises  that 
no  further  proceedings  may  be  had  in  any  part  of  our  work  against 
any  member  or  minister  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  on 
account  of  any  past  agency,  or  concern,  in  relation  to  the  above 
named  periodical,  or  in  relation  to  any  Union  Society  above 
mentioned."  The  pen  was  scarcely  dry,  however,  that  wrote  it 
before  other  prosecutions  and  expulsions  took  place,  as  will  be 
seen  in  regular  order.  The  conditions  of  restoration  are  embodied 
in  the  resolutions :  "  If  any  persons  expelled  as  aforesaid  feel  free 
to  concede  that  publications  have  appeared  in  said  Mutual  Bights, 
the  nature  and  character  of  which  were  unjustifiably  inflamma- 
tory, and  do  not  admit  of  vindication;  and  that  in  others  for 
want  of  proper  information,  or  unintentionally,  have  yet  in  fact 
misrepresented  individuals  and  facts,  and  that  they  regret  these 


172  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


things.  If  it  be  voluntarily  agreed  also  that  the  union  societies 
above  alluded  to  shall  be  abolished ;  and  the  periodical  called  the 
JMutual  Eights  be  discontinued,  at  the  close  of  the  current  volume, 
which  shall  be  completed"  (it  had  three  months  to  run),  "with 
due  respect  to  the  conciliatory  and  pacific  design  of  this  arrange- 
ment; then  this  general  conference  does  hereby  give  authority 
for  the  restoration,  to  their  ministry  or  membership  respectively, 
in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  of  any  person  or  persons  so 
expelled  aforesaid ;  provided  this  arrangement  shall  be  mutually 
assented  to  by  any  individual  or  individuals  so  expelled,  and  also 
by  the  quarterly  conference  and  the  minister  or  preacher  having 
the  charge  of  any  circuit  or  station  within  which  any  such  expul- 
sion may  have  taken  place;  and  that  no  such  minister  or  preacher 
shall  be  obliged,  under  this  arrangement,  to  restore  any  such 
individual  as  leader  of  any  class,  or  classes,  unless  in  his  own 
discretion  he  shall  judge  it  proper  to  do  so;  and  provided  also 
that  it  be  further  mutually  agreed  that  no  other  periodical  pub- 
lication, to  be  devoted  to  the  same  controversy,  shall  be  estab- 
lished on  either  side;  it  being  expressly  understood,  at  the  same 
time,  that  this,  if  agreed  to,  will  be  on  the  ground  not  of  any 
assumption  of  right  to  require  this,  but  of  mutual  consent  for  the 
restoration  of  peace ;  and  that  no  individual  will  be  hereafter  pre- 
cluded from  issuing  any  publication,  which  he  may  judge  proper 
on  his  own  responsibility."  Any  who  had  "  withdrawn  "  vv'ere  also 
to  have  the  same  opportunity  to  return.  "  One  of  the  Expelled" 
subsequently  drastically  exposed  these  provisions  as  utterly  im- 
possible of  compliance  by  any  self-respecting  Christian  man.^ 

It  is  needless  to  underscore  the  numerous  provisos  for  emphasis 
and  understanding.  The  terms  are  far  more  stringent  than  those 
proposed  by  Dr.  Bond,  through  Dr.  John  S.  Eeese  and,  subse- 
quently, through  Dr.  Green,  as  already  recited.  Two  things  are 
conspicuous:  the  humiliation  of  any  Reformer  asking  restora- 
tion, and  the  reserve  of  the  Quarterly  Conference  and  the  preacher 
in  charge  to  discriminate  between  them,  so  that  the  leaders  should 
not  be  restored,  with  a  special  eye  to  Alexander  McCaine,  for 
whom  there  was  to  be  never  restoration,  with  what  justice  shall 
be  presently  shown.  Dr.  Brown  says  he  never  knew  an  expelled 
or  withdrawn  member  to  accept  the  humiliating  proposals.  It 
was  true  in  the  West,  and,  with  one  exception,  so  far  as  the 
writer  knows,  true  in  the  East  also.  However,  a  year  or  two 
later  Rev.  Daniel  E.  Reese  accepted  the  terms,  and  in  his  old  age 

1  Mutual  Rights,  Vol.  IV.  pp-  338-ail. 


THE  CONTROVERSY  EMBODIED  AND  DISSECTED  173 


was  restored  as  a  local  minister  in  the  Church.  But  Dr.  John 
S.  Reese  and  three  younger  half-brothers,  Levi  R.,  Daniel  E., 
and  Eli  Yeates  graced  the  ministry  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  to  the  day  of  their  respective  deaths. 

It  is  now  opportune  for  a  critical  analysis  of  McCaine^s  "His- 
tory and  Mystery";  Dr.  Emory's  "Defence  of  Our  Fathers," 
in  reply;  McCaine's  "Defence  of  the  Truth,"  in  rejoinder  as 
amplified  in  his  "  Letters  on  the  Organization  and  Early  History 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Churcli " ;  and  such  fugitive  observa- 
tions as  were  made  by  Dr.  Emory  in  the  Methodist  Magazine,  on 
McCaine's  rejoinder  to  his  "Defence."  Dr.  Stevens's  chapter  in 
his  second  volume  of  the  "History  of  Methodism,"  with  the  title, 
"Did  Wesley  design,  by  his  Ordination  of  Coke,  to  confer  on 
him  the  Office  of  Bishop  and  to  constitute  the  American  Metho- 
dist Societies  an  Episcopal  Church?  "  is  added,  and  all  the  litera- 
ture on  this  special  subject  is  recited.^  Much  of  the  ground 
defensive  of  McCaine's  principal  allegations  has  been  gone  over 
in  the  previous  volume,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred,  and  need 
not,  therefore,  be  here  repeated.  Much  that  is  immaterial  to 
the  present  purpose  is  included  in  these  several  publications,  and 
must  be  passed  with  the  briefest  comment.  The  endeavor  shall 
be  made  to  sift  out  the  essential  differences,  and  show  them,  true 
or  false,  between  these  disputants.  The  whole  must  be  rigidly 
condensed  for  this  work,  as  the  entire  literature  named  is  the 
equivalent  of  about  six  hundred  printed  octavo  pages.  It  shall 
be  kept,  however,  accessible  to  any  inquiring  reader  who  may 
doubt  any  assertion,  or  question  any  conclusion,  of  the  writer  in 
this  criticism. 

The  contentions  of  McCaine  in  the  "History  and  Mystery" 

1  "  Wesley  and  Episcopacy.  A  collection  of  evidence,  showing  that  John  Wes- 
ley neither  originated  nor  approved  of  Episcopacy  in  American  Methodism,"  by 
D.  S.  Stephens,  D.D.,  Pittsburgh.  Methodist  Protestant  Publishing  House.  1892. 
12mo.   90  pp.  Paper. 

Assertions  to  the  contrary  having  just  been  made  in  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate  and  the  Methodist  Review,  the  Methodist  Recorder,  D.  S.  Stephens,  editor, 
controverted  them.  Whereupon  the  Central  Christian  Advocate  challenged  the 
editor  to  produce  the  "  documentary  evidence  "  that  would  support  his  controver- 
sion. The  pamphlet  named  furnishes  the  evidence  with  an  argument  cumulative 
so  masterful  and  complete  that  the  editor  of  one  of  the  associate  Advocates,  with 
a  frankness  that  does  it  honor,  admits  that  the  case  is  made,  that  the  argument 
is  a  finality  on  the  subject.  The  reader  who  wishes  to  see  the  argument  as  spread 
over  these  volumes,  and  much  amplified  in  many  of  its  phases  with  additional 
features  and  indisputable  facts,  presented  as  under  a  focus  of  concentrated  light, 
is  referred  to  this  pamphlet.  It  contains  some  collateral  evidence  not  found  in 
these  pages. 


174 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


may  be  briefly  recited  —  the  evidence  upon  which  he  depended 
has  been  already  luminously  presented  in  the  previous  volume. 
Firstly,  he  contends  that,  historically  considered,  an  Episco- 
pacy is  a  ministry  of  three  orders.  Bishops,  Presbyters,  and 
Deacons.  Secondly,  that  Mr.  Wesley  in  appointing  Dr.  Coke 
a  Superintendent  under  a  form  of  ordination  did  not  intend 
to  constitute  him  a  Bishop,  episcopally  understood,  and  that  of 
consequence,  the  Conference  of  1784  could  not  have  followed  "  the 
counsel  of  Mr.  Wesley,  who  recommended  the  episcopal  mode  of 
government"  for  the  American  Methodist  Societies.  Thirdly, 
his  conclusion  that  "the  present  form  of  government  was  sur- 
reptitiously introduced,  and  was  imposed  upon  the  societies  under 
the  sanction  of  Mr.  Wesley's  name."  To  refute  these  allegations 
Dr.  Emory  set  himself  in  the  "  Defence  of  Our  Fathers  " ;  and  he 
reviews  it  in  the  order  of  subjects  presented  by  McCaine.  The 
first  seventy-four  pages  of  it  are  occupied  in  a  denial  of  McCaine's 
positions  and  a  review  of  the  evidences  on  which  he  relied. 
What  he  establishes  is,  that  there  are  other  forms  of  Episcopacy 
besides  that  of  a  three-order  one;  that  ecclesiastical  history 
anent  bishops  and  presbyters  being  the  same  and  differing  orders 
is  a  muddle  of  contradictions ;  and  that  precedents  are  not  want- 
ing in  justification  of  such  an  Episcopacy  as  was  formulated  at 
the  Christmas  Conference  of  1784;  that  McCaine  is  in  error  as  to 
the  absolute  rejection  of  Whatcoat  as  Wesley's  appointee  as  a 
coadjutor  Superintendent;  that  he  is  also  in  error  as  to  the  puni- 
tive act  of  Wesley  in  leaving  Dr.  Coke's  name  off  the  minutes  of 
the  British  Conference  for  1786,  for  his  participation  with  Asbury 
in  the  Address  to  President  Washington,  which  was  not  made 
until  1789;  and  that  various  forms  of  McCaine's  evidence  are 
susceptible  of  a  different  construction.  Through  these  fifteen 
sections  of  the  "  Defence  "  Dr.  Emory  does  not  hesitate  to  resort 
to  the  subterfuge  that  McCaine  is  "mistaken,"  that  he  does  not 
"understand,"  that  another  view  must  be  the  correct  one,  without 
giving  proof  of  it.  He  shows  that  McCaine,  in  asserting  that  the 
secession  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in  1792-94, 
amounted  to  twenty  thousand,  is  in  error,  inasmuch  as  he  gives  a 
false  summing  up  of  the  numbers  in  membership  in  1791,  while 
a  correct  recapitulation  shows  that  an  error  of  thirteen  thousand 
was  made  by  the  Conference  secretary,  which  has  come  down 
through  all  the  minutes  since  uncorrected.  He  severely  arraigns 
McCaine  for  following  this  Conference  error.  He  occupies  four 
pages  in  an  animadversion  upon  the  Washington  Address  matter, 


McCAINE,  EMORY,  AND  STEVENS 


175 


and  shows  that  Drew,  Dr.  Coke's  biographer,  whom  McCaine 
followed,  ought  to  be  excused,  he  thinks,  for  his  misleading  asso- 
ciation of  these  events.  And,  in  the  final  chapter,  he  notes 
McCaine's  "  inconsistency  "  in  the  Plan  he  offered  for  the  recon- 
struction of  the  mother  Church,  and  a  few  other  points. 

About  a  year  after,  McCaine  rejoined  in  his  "  Defence  of  the 
Truth  " ;  and  he  gives  an  introductory  chapter  explanatory  of  his 
method  in  conducting  his  first  investigations,  and  defensive  of 
his  moral  character,  which  had  been  assailed  in  the  most  unwar- 
rantable manner  after  the  publication  of  the  "  History  and  Mys- 
tery." He  gives  the  charges  and  specifications,  under  which  he 
was  called  to  trial  by  Hanson  and  Dr.  Bond,  for  alleging  that 
McCaine  had  "purchased  copper,  knowing  it  to  have  been  stolen," 
etc.  The  case  was  ignominiously  abandoned  at  the  office  of  the 
civil  magistrate  as  "unsustained."  He  also  appends  a  certificate 
of  recommendation,  which  was  given  him  on  the  eve  of  his  trip 
South  for  his  health,  signed  by  all  the  Faculty  of  the  University 
of  Maryland,  and  of  the  Washington  College,  as  well  as  the 
judges  of  the  City  Court,  of  the  District  Court,  the  United  States 
District  Attorney,  John  Purviance,  Esq.,  William  Wirt,  Attor- 
ney-General of  the  United  States,  Samuel  L.  Southard,  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  and  John  M'Lean,  Postmaster-General.  The  latter 
was  also  a  personal  friend  of  Rev.  William  C.  Lipscomb,  ap- 
pointing him  to  office  in  1828,  and  was  in  social  intimacy  with 
Reformers,  though  he  never  took  public  ground  in  their  favor. 
Yet  this  is  the  man  thus  recommended  who  was  hounded  as  an 
outlaw  in  that  day  by  anti-reformers,  and  of  whom  Dr.  Bond  said 
in  the  bitterness  of  his  hostility,  "  if  he  were  to  sweep  the  streets 
of  Baltimore  he  could  not  find  a  man  under  the  influence  of  worse 
motives  than  I  am."  The  venerable  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick 
related  to  the  writer  as  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  time,  that  Dr. 
Bond  in  a  social  gathering,  the  conversation  having  turned  upon 
meetings  in  heaven,  said,  "  There  is  one  man  I  do  not  expect  to 
meet  there."  Query  being  made,  he  answered,  "Alexander 
McCaine." 

*'  Alas  !  for  the  rarity 
Of  Christian  charity 
Under  the  sun." 

In  this  introductory  chapter  the  lion  is  at  bay :  "  My  character 
has  been  assailed  from  so  many  quarters.  So  many  base  strata- 
gems have  been  resorted  to,  with  a  view  of  injuring  my  reputa- 
tion, weakening  my  influence,  and  destroying  my  temporal 


176 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


interests,  that  men  who  know  the  value  of  character  will  not, 
it  is  hoped,  think  I  have  transgressed  the  bounds  of  Christian 
moderation,  in  exposing  these  proceedings.  ...  I  write  in  jus- 
tification of  my  own  character  and  in  defence  of  the  truth,  and 
shall  leave  an  impartial  public  to  pronounce  the  verdict." 

McCaine's  "Defence  of  the  Truth"  now  claims  as  impartial  a 
judgment  as  the  writer  is  capable  of  giving,  and  it  is  hoped  the 
reader  will  discover  that  he  is  in  no  wise  disposed  to  extenuate 
its  faults  or  compound  its  extremes,  thereby  giving  greater  weight 
to  the  things  he  does  establish  beyond  reasonable  contradiction, 
for  these  are  the  material  matters  after  all.  The  first  three 
pages  are  occupied  with  questionings  of  Emory's  motives  in  writ- 
ing the  "Defence  of  Our  Fathers,"  prompted  by  his  defamation 
of  jVIcCaine,  in  that  with  "  great  unkindness  I  pursue  Mr.  Asbury 
in  his  grave."  It  must  be  confessed  that  McCaine's  method  of 
sarcastic  personalities  very  much  impairs  his  several  controversial 
pamphlets.  He  aptly,  however,  turns  Emory's  equally  personal 
and  more  than  sarcastic  reference  just  cited,  by  reminding  him 
that  the  same  charge  was  preferred  against  Wesley,  "his  sacri- 
legious hand  violates  the  ashes  of  the  dead,"  and  traduces  the 
character  of  Mr.  Whitefield,  "  with  ungodly  craft  he  claws  up  the 
ashes  of  the  dead."^  He  extenuates  his  fault  in  these  personali- 
ties :  "  If  the  reader  will  pardon  the  appearance  of  egotism,  I  will 
tell  him  that  since  God  was  pleased  to  convert  my  soul,  I  have 
made  it  a  rule  not  to  say  anything  of  a  man  in  his  absence  that  I 
would  not  say  in  his  presence;  that  from  that  period  until  this, 
my  heart  has  been  free  from  the  fear  of  man;  and  that  I  am  not 
now  conscious  of  having  flattered  a  man  in  all  that  time;  this  is 
not  the  smooth  way  to  heaven,  but  as  far  as  I  understand  the 
principles  and  precepts  of  the  New  Testament,  it  is  the  way  that 
is  prescribed;  and  this  is  the  way  I  choose  to  walk  in."  In  his 
vindication  he  then  cites  from  half  a  dozen  letters  addressed  him 
by  Bishop  Asbury,  from  1799  to  1815,  the  last  less  than  a  year 
prior  to  his  death.  Citations  may  be  made  as  follows:  "My 
confidence  in  you  as  a  man  of  piety,  honor,  and  conscience  is 
hereby  signified;  I  love  you,  I  know  —  your  honest  bluntness  I 
approve."  Eor  several  years  he  had  designated  McCaine  as  the 
person  among  all  the  preachers  as  best  qualified  by  his  learning 
and  ability  to  write  a  commentary  on  the  Scriptures,  to  be  called 
"The  Focus."  Hence  this  reference  in  1815:  "The  focus  upon 
the  great  book.  Have  you  begun?  begin  book  after  book,  gen- 
1  Wesley's  "  Works,"  Vol.  X.  p.  AM. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  TRIPARTITE  CONTENTION  177 

eral  history  and  contents;  it  has  been  upon  my  mind  for  years; 
but  who  should  I  fix  upon;  it  is  Alexander  McCaine."  Finally, 
July  15,  1815,  having  heard  that  McCaine  had  lost  his  wife,  he 
suggests  that  he  would  accommodate  him  in  an  appointment  so 
that  he  might  work  upon  ^' The  Focus  " :  "I  have  been  reading 
these  fifty  years,  and  have  never  seen  what  meeteth  my  mind, 
I  mean  an  universal  Focus  taken  from  all  authors  wortliy  of 
notice." 

McCaine  never  entered  upon  this  work,  for  obvious  reasons. 
One  was,  he  found  a  skeleton  in  the  Methodist  closet,  ten  years 
later.  The  door  had  been  closed  and  sealed  by  Dr.  Coke  and  his 
loved  Bishop  Asbury.  It  was  no  agreeable  discovery,  as  he  re- 
cites, but  without  fear  or  favor  he  opened  the  long-sealed  door, 
and  suffered  the  penalty  of  all  such  indiscretions  to  the  close  of 
his  life.  The  "  History  and  Mystery "  did  it,  and  so  incontro- 
vertibly  that  reverent  but  ignorant  and  prejudiced  Methodists, 
without  challenge  of  the  facts,  denounced  it  as  a  work  "  written 
with  all  the  malignity  of  which  the  human  heart  is  capable." 
To  Emory's  insinuation  that  McCaine  would  not  have  had  the 
effrontery  to  assert  what  he  does  in  his  pamphlet  before  the 
decease  of  Coke  and  Asbury,  he  answers :  "  Had  I  before  their 
death  the  light  on  the  subject  which  I  now  have,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive any  reason  I  should  have  been  deterred  from  giving  pub- 
licity to  my  views;  but  I  had  not.  For  I  never  examined  the 
subject  until  lately,  always  receiving  as  true  the  statements  pub- 
lished in  the  book  of  Discipline  and  Minutes  of  the  Conference." 
These  several  citations  will  be  excused  as  exhibiting  the  true 
relation  of  McCaine  to  the  persons  involved  and  to  the  subject 
discussed. 

Seven  pages  of  McCaine's  rejoinder  are  occupied  with  Emory's 
first  section  "  On  Episcopacy,"  in  which  McCaine  shows  that  they 
are  at  cross-purposes;  Emory  for  diversion  of  attention  bringing 
into  the  question  points  utterly  irrelevant  as  to  McCaine' s  con- 
tention, and  serving  only  to  cloud  the  real  issue,  which  McCaine 
again  states,  to  wit:  "If  the  societies  now  constituting  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in  the  exercise  of  their  right  to 
frame  their  constitution,  preferred  at  their  organization  the 
episcopal  government,  in  what  light  are  the  bishops  of  that  Church 
to  be  considered?  As  mere  presbyters,  or  as  an  order  of  ministers 
distinct  from  and  superior  to  presbyters?  This  is  the  inquiry 
under  consideration,  and  Mr.  Emory  knows  it."  The  latter  was 
the  view  of  Coke  and  Asbury,  and  the  prevalent  opinion  for 

VOL.  II  —  N 


178 


HISTORY  OF  METUODIST  REFORM 


years  after  1784,  and  indeed  largely  down  to  1844.  McCaine 
demonstrates  that  Wesley  could  not  and  did  not  so  understand 
it,  and  that  in  this  he  does  not  "misrepresent  him."  This  is 
the  whole  question,  and  to-day  at  least  in  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  no  one  is  left  seriously  to  doubt  it ;  ^  the  Church 
has  officially  passed  upon  it.  So  that  one  must  be  scored  for 
McCaine  as  to  this  issue,  despite  the  burdensome  citations  and 
learned  inconsequents  running  through  the  first  seventy  pages  of 
Emory's  "Defence." 

Having  censured  McCaine  severely  for  omitting  the  name  of 
an  authority  quoted,  by  asking,  "Was  it  not  because  he  was 
ashamed  of  it  ? "  McCaine  gives  the  name  of  Rev.  Dr.  Kew- 
ley  and  draws  a  parallel  between  their  respective  careers  under 
which  Dr.  Emory  must  have  winced;  but  as  the  matter  is 
purely  personal  it  may  be  dismissed.  "Sentiments  of  Bishop 
White"  is  the  next  of  Emory's  sections.  They  seem  to  have 
been  introduced  to  show  that  Dr.  Coke  is  not  responsible  for  the 
failure  of  the  overtures  made  by  him  to  White  in  1791  for  re- 
union, and  that  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  had  the  right  to 
"  revive  such  a  superintendency  as  was  practised  by  the  apostles 
and  by  Timothy  and  Titus."  He  dismisses  with  a  wave  of  his 
hand  the  insuperable  obstacle  that  they  were,  as  Wesley  taught, 
"extraordinary  teachers,  whom  Christ  employed  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  his  kingdom."  It  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  as  to  any 
"  misrepresentations  "  McCaine  made,  and  to  expose  these  Emory 
wrote  ostensibly.  It  is  controversial  dust,  and  excusatory  of  the 
anomalous  Episcopacy  of  Methodism.  "Mr.  Wesley's  Opinion" 
is  next.  Emory  cites  an  opinion  given  by  Wesley  on  another 
issue  entirely  in  1756,  twenty-eight  years  before  the  Christmas 
Conference  and  its  doings.  The  opinion  was :  "  I  still  believe  the 
episcopal  form  of  government  to  be  scriptural  and  apostolical,  I 
mean,  well  agreeing  with  the  practice  and  writings  of  the  apos- 
tles. But  that  it  is  prescribed  in  the  scripture,  I  do  not  believe." 
McCaine  exhibits  that  its  introduction  as  germane  to  the  discus- 
sion was  disingenuous,  inasmuch  as  he  clearly  makes  appear  from 
the  original  reference  itself  that  what  Mr.  Wesley  meant  in  view 
of  his  oft-repeated  declaration  that  "  bishops  and  presbyters  are 
the  same  order  "  was  that  of  a  government  by  presbyters,  and  an 
ordination  by  presbyters,  something  very  different  from  Coke  and 
Asbury's  episcopacy.  A  second  score  for  McCaine.  The  next 
section  is  "Ordination."    It  is  a  dialectical  display  between 

i  Professor  Miley  of  Drew  Seminary  is  an  exception  —  rara  avis. 


''DEFENCE  OF  OUR  FATHERS''  ANALYZED  179 

these  masters  of  fence  and  parry,  and  has  no  pertinence  unless 
Mr.  Wesley's  intent  in  the  ordination  of  Dr.  Coke  could  be  under- 
stood; but  as  this  vexed  question  has  never  been  settled  on  either 
side,  it  may  be  passed  as  a  draw  between  them.  He  returns  a 
"  Roland  for  his  Oliver "  by  citing  the  fact  that  Emory  makes 
quotations  without  giving  either  the  author  or  the  page,  one  in 
this  section  in  point,  and  McCaine  justly  observes :  "  This  is  the 
more  reprehensible  in  him,  because  he  is  so  lavish  of  his  abuse 
of  me  for  having  once  failed  to  give  the  name  of  an  author  from 
whom  I  made  extract." 

"Ordination  of  Coke"  is  the  fifth  section  of  Emory's  "De- 
fence," and  McCaine  occupies  twenty  pages  of  his  rejoinder  in  an 
exhaustive  analysis  and  refutation,  and  exposes  at  the  same  time 
a  most  disingenuous  assertion  of  Dr.  Bangs's.  This  matter  of  the 
ordination  of  Coke  by  Wesley  has  been  so  largely  treated  in  the 
former  volume  that  reference  of  the  reader  must  be  made  to  it, 
though  McCaine  elaborates  this  section,  and  leaves  Emory's  con- 
tention that  it  must  have  been  to  a  "  third  order  "  without  a  foot 
to  stand  on,  from  his  clear  demonstration  that,  whatever  else  the 
ordination  was,  or,  as  Wesley  himself  denominates  it,  "  appoint- 
ment" of  Dr.  Coke  as  a  "general  superintendent,"  it  could  not 
have  been  to  a  "'third  order,"  without  convicting  Wesley  of  an 
insane  and  utterly  irreconcilable  contradiction  of  all  his  previous 
averments.  McCaine's  implied  inference  is  that  if  Coke  was  not 
" set  apart "  to  a  "  third  order,"  then  the  Episcopacy  of  Methodism 
in  America  is  in  no  sense  like  Episcopacy  as  understood  and 
taught  by  Episcopalians,  but  a  mere  "  general  superintendency  " 
by  a  Presbyter  set  apart  by  a  ceremonial  (that  Wesley  probably 
used  that  of  the  English  Prayer  Book  with  verbal  changes  to  suit 
the  exigency  as  a  convenience  in  Coke's  case,  and  retained  it  in 
the  abridged  book  sent  for  the  adoption  of  the  American  Metho- 
dists, is  nothing  to  the  purpose),  with  the  object  of  investing  the 
office  with  clerical  dignity.  Such  an  Episcopacy  McCaine  did 
not  challenge;  such  an  Episcopacy  is  now  the  only  one  allowed 
by  the  official  interpretation  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church; 
such  an  Episcopacy  obtains  in  the  Canada  "Methodist"  Church, 
in  the  Free  Methodist  Church;  in  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  diocesan  in  its  character  as  a  superintendence  by  Annual 
Conference  Presidents,  and  in  this  a  verisimilitude  of  the  true- 
blue  Episcopacy  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church ;  in  fine,  such 
an  Episcopacy  as  is  not  disputed  in  any  of  the  so-called  "  Non- 
episcopal  "  Churches,  as  it  would  be  a  mere  higgling  over  words. 


180 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Another  score  must  be  made  for  McCaine ;  let  the  doubtful  reader 
peruse  the  whole  text.  The  disingenuous  averment  of  Dr.  Bangs's 
will  be  best  considered  in  a  foot-note.^ 

"Dr.  Coke's  Letter  to  Bishop  White"  is  next  in  order. 
McCaine  gives  thirteen  pages  to  it;  the  letter,  its  analysis,  his 
correspondence  with  White  anent  it,  and  his  demonstration  that 
Coke  did  not  know  of  Wesley's  death,  as  Emory  asserts,  when 
he  wrote  and  despatched  the  letter, —  all  this  is  elaborately  dis- 
sected in  the  first  volume,  in  which  this  writer  differs  a  little 
from  the  conclusions  of  McCaine,  and  to  which  he  must  refer 
the  reader  to  avoid  repetition.  Another  score  must  be  made 
for  McCaine.  "The  Prayer  Book  of  1784"  comes  next.  The 
whole  gist  of  it  is  that  Dr.  Emory  essays  to  find,  as  it  was 
recommended  for  use  to  the  American  Methodists,  that  of 
necessity  this  was  Wesley's  "recommendation  of  an  Episcopal 
form  of  government."  It  is  McCaine's  task  through  ten  pages 
to  show  that  it  does  not  afford  a  scintilla  of  proof,  except  the 
word  "recommend"  in  Wesley's  letter  as  to  the  use  of  the 
Prayer  Book  in  given  times  and  places.  And  to  cap  his  argu- 
ment he  furnishes  letters  from  three  of  the  preachers  who  were 
members  of  the  Conference  of  1784;  namely,  Dromgoole,  Ware, 

1  Bangs  and  Emory  were  associated  as  Book  Agents  at  this  time,  and  the  former, 
that  he  might  assist  his  chum  in  overwhelming  McCaine,  asserted  in  the  Methodist 
Magazine  for  September,  1827 :  "How  changed  is  the  author  of  the  ' History  and 
Mystery '  from  what  he  was  when  he  heard,  read,  approved,  and  recommended  for 
publication  at  the  Methodist  Book  Room  the  '  Vindication  of  Methodist  Episco- 
pacy.' He  need  not  attempt  to  deny  this  fact,  because  it  stands  attested  by  his 
own  signature  as  secretary  of  the  book  committee."  Emory  in  the  Preface  to 
his  "Defence  of  Our  Fathers"  echoes  pretty  much  the  same  averment  against 
McCaine.  To  show  the  shifts,  and  the  writer  is  in  this  case  constrained  to  say, 
the  dishonesty,  of  his  doughty  opponents,  he  gives  in  a  foot-note  to  his  "Defence  of 
the  Truth,"  p.  55,  a  full  account  of  the  whole  matter  by  a  transcript  of  the  book 
committee's  minutes  at  the  time;  and  the  evidence  is  that  all  McCaine  had  to  do 
with  Bangs's  "Vindication"  was  as  secretary  to  the  committee  to  record  their 
action  as  follows :  "  1st,  On  motion  it  was  resolved  that  the  committee  approve  of 
its  publication.  2d,  Resolved  that  the  above  work  be  recommended  to  the  book 
agents  for  publication.  Signed  as  an  'attest,'  Alexander  McCaine,"  who  was 
now  in  the  employ  of  the  Book  Concern  in  a  subordinate  position.  The  date  is 
September  8,  1820.  This  is  the  work  before  noted  as  objected  to  by  Soule,  who 
was  then  Book  Agewt,  but  which  passed  approval  after  reconstruction  by  Bangs, 
the  ground  of  Soule's  protest  being  that  it  was  not  fully  in  accord  with  his  own 
cast-iron  views  of  an  Episcopacy.  It  was  subsequently  published  and  -SlOO  voted 
the  author  out  of  the  profits  of  the  Concern,  said  profits  being  sacredly  de- 
voted by  its  charter  to  the  "  superannuated  and  worn  out-preachers,  their 
widows  and  orphans."  My  pen  has  indited  the  oiTenders  as  dishonest,  but  the 
sober  thought  comes,  as  it  never  came  to  the  maligners  and  traducers  of  these 
early  Reformers,  that  may  be  it  was  not  moral  turpitude,  but  human  infirmity 
and  bitter  prejudice. 


EMORY  AND  McCAINE  WRESTLING  181 


and  Forrest,  who  agree  that  it  was  not  mentioned  by  Coke  or 
Asbury  as  "recommending  any  form  of  government." 

"The  Prayer  Book  of  1786."  In  this  McCaine  is  at  his  best 
and  Emory  at  his  worst;  not  that  the  first  is  the  superior  dialec- 
tician, but  because  McCaine  so  clearly  has  the  case.  The  ground 
has  already  been  traversed  in  the  first  volume,  and  no  more 
than  a  condensed  statement  can  here  be  made.  McCaine  reviews 
it  under  three  heads.  First,  as  to  Dr.  Coke's  agency  in  the  pub- 
lication of  this  prayer  book.  The  facts  as  to  the  edition  of  1784, 
sent  over  "in  sheets,"  as  Emory  says,  have  already  been  recited, 
so  that  the  gist  of  the  contention  is  in  the  query :  second,  why 
did  Dr.  Coke  reprint  it  so  soon  after  in  England  and  at  the  press 
of  "Frys  and  Couchman,"  and  not  on  Wesley's  press?  The 
answer  made  in  the  first  volume  is  the  only  one  that  can  be  made 
that  will  quadrate  with  all  the  facts ;  namely,  the  edition  sent  by 
Wesley,  Coke  had  bound  up  with  the  Minutes  of  the  Conference 
of  1784,  writing  the  brief  historical  preface  to  the  Discipline 
himself,  with  Asbury's  sanction,  in  which  not  a  syllable  occurs 
intimating  that  the  Church  was  organized  episcopally  by  Wes- 
ley's "counsel"  as  "recommendation,"  and  was  intended  for 
Wesley's  perusal;  and  in  it  the  word  "  Bishop  "  does  not  occur  as 
synonymous  with  "Superintendent,"  as  is  made  to  appear  in  the 
edition  of  1795,  printed  by  Dickins.  While  there  is  no  direct 
evidence,  as  the  original  minutes  in  manuscript  from  1784  to 
1794  are  not  in  existence,  those  from  which  the  edition  of  1795 
were  printed  probably  going  into  the  waste-basket  of  the  printing- 
ofiice,  the  general  receptacle  of  "copy"  and  "proofs,"  yet  it  is 
amenable  to  reason  that  Dr.  Coke,  who  had  been  cautioned  by 
Wesley  "  in  the  most  solemn  manner  "  not  to  assume  the  title  of 
Bishop  in  America,  as  Moore  asserts,  would  not  have  presumed 
to  so  print  the  minutes  of  1784  making  the  terms  interchange- 
able, without  having  administered  to  him  then  and  there  by 
anticipation  the  stinging  rebuke  Wesley  did  administer  in  his 
letter  to  Asbury,  when  he  at  last  was  compelled  to  see  that  in  this 
his  instructions  had  been  wantonly  violated.  Emory  makes  nine 
queries  in  an  attempt  to  explain  this  matter,  and  resorts  to  a 
common  subterfuge  with  him  in  knotty  cases,  in  that  he  ushers 
them  in  with  a  "  probable  "  or  a  "  presumable  ; "  two  with  an 
"if;"  only  one  is  set  down  as  "certain,"  and  that  is  not  in 
dispute ;  that  Wesley  required  a  minute  account  from  Coke  of  the 
American  proceedings,  a  point  covered  in  the  first  volume.  In- 
deed, Emory  utterly  fails  to  explain,  and  offers  but  a  single 


182 


III  STORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


suggestion  of  any  weight;  to  wit,  that  the  firm  of  Frys  and 
Couchman  was  sometimes  employed  by  Wesley  to  do  printing, 
and  instances  the  second  volume  of  the  Arminian  Magazine.  The 
plant  of  this  firm  and  Wesley's  was  in  the  same  building,  and 
this  convenience  was  no  doubt  under  a  pressure  of  work  availed 
of  at  times;  but  the  burden  of  evidence  is  that  Wesley  cannot 
be  connected  as  assenting  to  this  second  edition  of  the  prayer 
book  for  America,  as  he  had  undoubtedly  sent  over  with  Dr.  Coke 
enough  to  supply  the  demand  for  a  much  longer  period  than  six 
months;  that  Coke  issued  the  second  at  his  own  expense,  and 
sundry  other  facts,  McCaine  marshals ;  that  the  reason  for  this 
publication  is  found  in  the  fact  that  it  represents  Wesley  as 
approving  by  implication  all  that  was  done  in  1784  as  intended 
for  the  American  market,  and  so  carrying  out  the  illusion  that 
Coke  and  Asbury  had  followed  Wesley's  instructions  in  every- 
thing, an  opinion,  as  found,  which  prevailed  among  the  preachers 
until  these  discoveries  of  McCaine.  The  third  point  made  by 
Emory  is  a  challenge :  "  Where  is  the  evidence  that  he  [Wesley] 
ever  disavowed  them  "  (that  is,  the  doings  of  the  Christmas  Con- 
ference)? McCaine  answers:  "To  the  most  superficial  reader  it 
is  plain  that  it  is  not  by  the  absence  of  evidence  of  the  disavowal 
of  the  'proceedings  of  Dr.  Coke,  Mr.  Asbury,  and  the  Conference 
of  1784 '  that  Mr.  Wesley's  approbation  of  those  proceedings, 
and  his  recognition  of  the  title  'Methodist  Episcopal  Church,'  are 
to  be  proved.  As  well  might  A  say  that  his  title  to  an  estate  was 
valid,  because  B  could  not  produce  a  title  to  the  same  estate." 
The  burden  is  not  properly  upon  McCaine,  but  upon  those,  in- 
cluding Dr.  Emory,  who  all  along  affirmed  that  he  did  so  approve. 

Under  the  succeeding  section  McCaine  comments  upon  the 
unaccountable  misrepresentation  Emory  makes;  to  wit,  he  had 
alleged  that  Coke's  name  was  left  off  the  British  minutes  of  1785, 
whereas  his  assertion  was  that  it  was  1786,  and  the  fact  is  as  he 
states:  an  error  more  gross  than  the  one  into  which  McCaine 
had  fallen  as  to  the  statistical  blunder  of  the  minutes  of  1791  of 
thirteen  thousand  members ;  and  in  his  zeal  to  show  that  friendly 
relations  existed  between  Coke  and  Wesley  to  the  latter's  death, 
he  tells  his  readers  that  John  Wesley  stationed  Coke  with  Charles 
Wesley  in  London  in  1790,  whereas  Charles  had  died  in  1788. 
When  his  attention  was  called  to  this  blunder  by  Hon.  P.  B. 
Hopper,  he  squirmed  under  it,  claiming  that  he  could  not  account 
for  it,  as  he  had  "the  minutes  of  the  British  Conference  open 
before  me."    He  wishes  the  error  to  be  condoned  in  him,  but  in 


DISPUTANTS  FAIRLY  TREATED 


183 


McCaine  he  is  unwilling  to  condone  an  error  into  which  the 
printed  Minutes  directly  led  him.^  Under  "  Mr.  Asbury "  the 
discussion  of  his  connection  with  the  organization  of  the  Church 
in  1784  is  pursued  exhaustively,  but  as  all  this  has  been  weighed 
and  analyzed  in  the  former  volume,  no  more  need  be  said  of 
it.  "Testimonies  of  English  Methodists"  follows,  but  McCaine 
meets  it  with  overwhelming  counter  testimony,  the  principal  aver- 
ments being  amply  sustained,  that  "  there  exists  no  document  in 
which  the  words  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  were  ever  written 
by  Mr.  Wesley  " ;  and  that  the  British  Conference  never  recog- 
nized the  title  until  after  the  fraternal  visit  of  Dr.  Emory  in  1820. 
Acknowledging  his  visit  to  the  General  Conference  of  1824,  they 
recognize  the  Church  title  for  the  first  time  ;  forty  years  after 
it  was  assumed  by  the  Christmas  Conference.  Reflecting,  as  they 
must  have  done,  Wesley's  views,  nothing  more  would  be  neces- 
sary to  reasonable  minds  as  irrefragable  proof  that  he,  and  the 
British  Conference  after  him,  purposely  repudiated  the  official 
doings  of  1784  as  connecting  Wesley  with  them,  either  as  giving 
"counsel"  or  "recommending"  what  was  done.  In  all  these 
points  McCaine  must  be  allowed  scores  against  his  opponent. 

"Section  XI.,  Dr.  Coke,"  pursues  the  question  of  the  Address 
of  the  bishops  to  Washington,  heretofore  fully  considered.  In 
this  Emory  has  the  advantage,  inasmuch  as  McCaine  allowed 
himself  to  be  misled  by  the  chronological  disorder  of  Drew's 
"Life  of  Coke,"  the  average  reader  inevitably  associating  the 
Address  with  1785,  instead  of  1789,  the  true  time.  The  writer 
has  confessed,  however,  that  McCaine,  as  an  educated  man,  a 
school-teacher,  and  intimately  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  ought  to  have  known  better,  and  the  score  must 

1  This  apparently  trivial  matter  assumes  importance  when  the  fact  is  stated 
that,  originating  in  the  printed  Minutes  of  1795,  by  Dickins,  who  overlooked  as 
proof-reader  this  error  of  thirteen  thousand  in  1791,  it  was  perpetuated  in  the 
Minutes  printed  in  1813,  and  carried  forward  into  those  printed  in  1840,  and  so 
stands  to  this  day.  And  as  to  Emory's  blunder  anent  Coke  and  Charles  Wesley 
stationed  together  in  London  in  1790,  Emory  in  the  Methodist  Magazine  was 
compelled  to  acknowledge  it,  with  a  promise  that  at  some  future  time  he  would 
revise  his  whole  pamphlet  (how  much  it  needed  it  has  been  shown)  ;  he  did  not 
live  to  do  so.  Curious  to  know  whether  any  subsequent  book  committee  had  done 
it  in  the  several  editions  of  the  "  Defence  of  Our  Fathers  "  which  were  issued,  the 
writer  recently  purchased  a  copy  of  the  edition  issued  under  '*  Hunt  and  Eaton," 
only  to  find  that  this  error  is  perpetuated,  and  no  revision  ever  made  of  the 
pamphlet,  so  that  the  young  preachers  on  trial  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
were  taught  it  as  a  part  of  the  "  course  of  study,"  for  some  forty  years,  or  down 
to  about  1870,  when  it  was  dropped  out,  a  modern  race  of  Methodist  preachers  not 
appreciating  the  work  of  Emory  so  extravagantly  lauded  in  his  own  day. 


184  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


be  given  to  Emory.  McCaine  wrestles  with  it,  but  appears  to 
have  been  so  befogged  by  it  that  no  satisfactory  solution  is 
reached  by  him.  A  few  facts  are  patent:  Coke's  name  is 
found  omitted  from  the  British  minutes  in  1786  and  in  1790.  In 
the  last  case  all  parties  admit  that  it  was  a  punitive  act  of  the 
Conference  for  British  disloyalty  in  joining  with  Asbury  in  the 
Address  to  Washington  of  1789.  In  1786,  finding  his  name  also 
omitted,  McCaine  reached  the  conclusion  that  it  was  also  punitive 
for  the  part  he  took  in  organizing  the  American  Church,  exceed- 
ing his  authority,  and  disregarding  the  instructions  Wesley  gave 
him  in  the  "  little  sketch  "  of  government  he  had  intrusted  to 
him.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that  leaving  the  name  off  the 
official  minutes  was  by  these  early  Methodist  preachers  accounted 
a  punitive  act;  possibly  it  had  exceptions,  but  none  has  been  pro- 
duced. So  that  the  question  crystallizes :  Why  was  it  omitted 
in  1786?  Either  McCaine's  construction  must  be  admitted,  or 
the  limping  explanation  of  Emory  must  be  accepted  as  satisfac- 
tory; what  was  it?  That  while  his  name  does  not  occur  in  the 
official  minutes  for  1786,  yet  Wesley  in  the  Arminian  Magazine 
for  that  year  mentions  him  as  set  down  for  "America,"  he  having 
been  appointed  by  Wesley  to  act  as  missionary  to  Xova  Scotia, 
and  "was  not  expected  to  return  until  the  next  year."  It  is 
needful  only  to  repeat  what  was  said  when  the  subject  was  treated 
in  the  first  volume,  "the  explanation  does  not  explain."  The 
case  is  a  desperate  one  for  Emory;  he  resorts  to  the  subter- 
fuge in  order  to  make  exceptions  as  punitive  acts,  the  omission 
of  Wesley's  name  by  the  American  Conference  in  1787,  in  the 
very  face  of  the  fact  that  this  was  manifestly  punitive;  the 
omissions  of  Asbury's  name  in  1778,  etc.,  for  "prudential 
reasons ; "  but  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  this  instance  was  not 
punitive  as  well,  for  his  former  high-handed  measures,  as  the 
Conference  was  now  controlled  by  the  Gatch-Dickins-O'Kelly 
regulars  on  a  Presbyterian  basis. 

Emory's  effort  to  palliate  the  censure  of  the  British  Con- 
ference of  Coke  in  1790,  by  an  ingenious  but  disingenuous 
piece  of  mosaic  work  of  extracts  from  Drew,  making  but  a 
printed  page,  having  the  appearance  of  a  closely  connected 
citation,  while  in  fact  made  up  of  fragments  woven  together 
out  of  forty-three  pages  of  Drew,  though  at  the  close  of  it 
Emory  says:  "Life  of  Coke,"  pp.  102-145,  was  also  exposed,  but 
the  point  made  by  McCaine  is  immaterial,  and  the  argument  may 
be  considered  a  draw. 


mccaine's  recapitulation  summarized  185 


Under  "  Methodist  Episcopacy  "  McCaine  notes  that  there  is 
nothing  to  observe  not  already  considered  except  the  remarkable 
dictum  of  Emory,  "The  Bishops  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  have  no  control  whatever  over  the  decisions  of  either  a 
general  or  an  annual  conference,"  and  floors  him  by  citing  his 
own  contrary  opinion  in  the  famous  address  just  before  the  Con- 
ference of  1820,  "  that  a  brother  [Soule]  just  elected  to  the  Epis- 
copal office,  and  not  yet  ordained  .  .  .  should  thus  by  a  strong 
hand  arrest  the  operation  of  resolutions  .  .  .  passed -after  long 
and  solemn  debate  .  .  .  concurred  in  by  more  than  two-thirds  of 
the  general  conference,  and  two-thirds  of  the  episcopacy  itself," 
etc.  Under  the  title  "Bishop"  he  notices  Emory's  quibble  that 
the  American  Conference  did  not  title  Wesley  as  a  "bishop,"  but 
as  exercising  the  "episcopal  office,"  already  exposed  in  the  first 
volume.  Another  score  for  McCaine.  Three  sections  that  follow 
before  the  recapitulation  are  so  little  to  the  purpose,  and  have 
been  incidentally  considered  in  the  preceding  ones,  as  well  as  in 
the  first  volume,  that  McCaine 's  Recapitulation  may  now  be 
brought  forward. 

In  this  masterful  Recapitulation,  first  of  the  "  Defence  of  the 
Truth,"  he  sums  up  twenty -four  facts  as  established  by  it,  and 
again  challenges  the  proof  that  he  had  "misrepresented"  an}^  of 
them.  He  then  sums  up  the  whole  argument  in  demonstration 
of  his  original  allegation,  that  "  Methodist  Episcopacy  was  sur- 
reptitiously "  introduced  in  1784.  In  other  places  he  denominates 
it  a  "  fraud  "  and  as  "  foisted  upon  the  Church  " ;  and  if  there  can 
be  extenuation  of  such  bald,  brusque  designations,  it  is  in  Asbury's 
estimate  of  the  man  and  his  "honest  bluntness."  Yet  to  the 
Methodists  of  that  day  and  every  day  since  such  appellations 
were  and  are  extremely  offensive,  and  to  the  large  majority  who 
then  read  and  now  read  nothing  but  Bond  and  Emory,  accounts  for 
the  fact  that  the  deep  prejudice  then  engendered  has  not  yet  died 
out  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  after  seventy  years  against 
the  leaders  of  Reform  in  1827-30;  against  the  "radicals"  and 
Methodist  Protestants  of  all  after  years.  McCaine  gives  thirty- 
seven  reasons  for  his  belief,  which  have  never  been  successfully 
refuted.^    A  number  of  them  are  not  material  to  his  argument, 

1  Rev.  Dr.  Collins  Denny,  of  the  M.  E.  CImrcli,  South,  called  my  attention  to  an 
apparent  confusion  of  McCaine  as  to  Wesley's  name  being  left  off  the  Minutes 
from  1785  to  1789,  and  the  statements  of  the  Discipline  for  the  same  period. 
Wesley's  name  does  occur  in  the  Discipline  in  connection  with  the  resolution  of 
1784  to  obey  him  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  authority.  That  resolution  was 
expunged  in  1787,  and  Wesley's  name  went  out  with  it  as  already  found.    It  was 


186  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


though  all  of  them  are  germane.  To  restate  them  would  not  only 
occupy  much  space,  but  repeat  what  has  been  traversed  in  this 
work  and  which  it  is  assumed  the  reader  has  not  forgotten.  The 
material  points  may  be  summarized  as  follows :  Mr.  Wesley  set 
apart"  Dr.  Coke  to  be  a  "general  superintendent"  coordinate  in 
authority  with  Asbury  in  the  government  of  the  American  socie- 
ties. He  was  induced  to  do  this  by  the  clamor  for  the  ordinances 
in  America,  and  the  declaration  that  these  societies  "  wished  to 
continue  under  his  care,"  as  he  recites  himself  in  the  preamble 
to  Dr.  Coke's  "letter  of  appointment."  He  admits  that  the 
Revolutionary  War  had  absolved  them  from  their  British  alle- 
giance and  to  the  Established  Church  of  England,  leaving  them, 
in  his  own  words,  "at  full  liberty  to  follow  the  Scriptures  and 
the  primitive  Church."  Dr.  Phoebus,  a  member  of  the  Christmas 
Conference,  confirms  this :  "  Mr.  Wesley  recommended  to  us  the 
New  Testament  for  our  pattern."  He  farther  says,  "I  have 
drawn  up  a  little  sketch"  for  the  government  of  the  societies, 
with  Coke  and  Asbury  as  his  subordinates,  and  this  little  sketch 
is  the  same  in  substance  as  the  "  plan  of  Church  government " 
"Henry  Moore "  certifies  he  had  prepared  for  this  purpose.^  He 

restored  in  1789,  continued  in  1790,  and  would  probably  have  been  continued  longer 
if  his  decease  in  1791  had  not  made  it  unnecessary  for  reasons  already  given. 
How  much  this  affects  McCaine's  argument  in  this  instance  the  critical  reader 
can  determine.  Dr.  Denny  thinks  it  breaks  down  this  part  of  McCaine's  aver- 
ments. 

1  Rev.  T.  A.  Kerley,  in  his  work,  1898,  "  Conference  Rights,"  before  referred 
to  in  a  foot-note,  says  of  this  matter,  "  I  have  drawn  up  a  little  sketch,"  as  found 
in  Wesley's  letter  to  the  American  Methodists  in  1784,  "that  it  teas  the  letter 
itself,"  overlooking  the  fact  that  in  this  case  Wesley,  as  a  master  of  intelligent 
English,  would  have  said,  "  I  have  drawn  up  this  little  sketch."  It  is  not  more 
puerile,  however,  than  Dr.  Emory's  explanation. 

In  addition  to  this  answer,  held  to  be  conclusive  as  to  the  averment  that  the 
"  little  sketch  "  and  the  Circular  Letter  in  which  the  declaration  as  to  it  is  found, 
are  not  the  same  and  identical,  the  writer  deems  it  proper  to  traverse  it  still  farther. 
In  a  fraternal  conversation  with  Rev.  Dr.  Collins  Denny  at  my  own  residence  in 
May,  1898,  the  same  position  was  firmly  taken  by  him  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
"  Sketch"  and  the  Circular,  buttressed  by  the  averment  that  "the  burden  of 
proof  "  was  with  those  who  denied  it ;  that  nothing  could  shake  the  position  logi- 
cally but  the  production  by  them  of  the  "little  sketch"  itself.  The  writer  an- 
swered that  in  his  view  the  precise  converse  was  the  true  position  logically,  and 
that  it  was  for  those  who  claimed  the  identity  of  the  "  sketch  "  with  the  "  Circu- 
lar" to  prove  it.  And  the  grounds  of  this  averment  are  in  part:  first,  the  Cir- 
cular is  an  authentic  document,  and  in  the  body  of  it  averment  is  made  by  its 
author  of  the  preparation  of  another  document,  "  I  have  drawn  up  a  little  sketch." 
Second,  as  supported  by  Henry  Moore,  already  cited  in  the  first  volume,  where 
the  question  is  also  considered  that  "  Mr.  Wesley"  "  informed  Dr.  Coke  of  his  de- 
sign of  draioing  up  a  plan  of  church  government,  and  of  establishing  an  ordination 
for  his  American  societies.   But  cautious  of  entering  on  so  new  a  plan,  he  after- 


LITTLE  SKETCH''  EXHAUSTIVELY  CONSIDERED  187 


had  peremptorily  and  solemnly  forbidden  Dr.  Coke  to  take  the 
title  of  Bishop  in  the  plan  of  government,  thereby  indicating  not 
only  that  he  had  no  idea  that  by  his  "  setting  apart "  and  "  ap- 
pointing "  (he  nowhere  uses  the  term  "  ordain  "  in  the  connection) 
as  a  Superintendent  that  he  was  creating  a  third-order  officer,  or 
gave  authority  to  Coke  to  constitute  Asbury  such  an  officer.  He 
also  armed  Coke  with  a  letter  of  authority,  called  his  ordination 
certificate,  and  a  letter  to  the  societies  for  their  "  use  "  and  to  be 
"published  "  to  this  end.  Coke,  on  his  arrival  in  America,  prob- 
ably showed  the  "  little  sketch "  of  government  to  Dickins,  the 
first  American  preacher  he  met,  who  declared  that  it  was  authori- 
tative and  needed  only  to  be  promulgated  and  obeyed.  After 
conference  with  Asbury  at  a  private  house  at  the  Barratt  chapel 
meeting,  Asbury  dissented  to  the  plan  of  the  "little  sketch," 
and  no  doubt  gave  Coke  some  sound  enough  reasons  for  it,  as  the 

ward  suspended  the  execution  of  his  purpose  and  weighed  the  whole  for  upward  of 
a  year."  The  italics  are  by  the  writer.  See  Moore's  "  Life  of  Wesley,"  American 
edition,  1825,  pp.  272,  273.  On  the  same  page,  273,  he  quotes  the  Circular  Let- 
ter, but  gives  no  hint  that  it  was  the  plan  of  church  government,"  prepared  in 
1783,  or  a  year  before  the  Circular  letter.  Third,  the  interpretation  by  which  the 
"  sketch"  and  the  Circular  are  declared  one  is  forced,  and  will  not  bear  the  light 
of  common-sense  English,  such  as  Wesley  or  Coke  would  have  used  in  such  a 
case,  as  set  forth  in  the  first  paragraph  of  this  note  in  answer  to  Dr.  Kerley. 
Fourth,  the  view  is  new  with  Drs.  Denny  and  Kerley,  no  other  Methodist  annal- 
ist for  a  hundred  years  attempting  so  to  explain  it.  Fifth,  the  Circular  letter  is 
not  a  "  plan  of  church  government  .  .  .  for  his  American  societies,"  intended  for 
the  guidance  of  his  "  Assistants,"  Coke  and  Asbury,  but  a  Letter  to  the  Societies 
which  he  ordered  printed  and  circulated  among  them.  Sixth,  all  the  collateral 
facts  are  against  the  logical  probability  that  the  **  sketch  "  and  the  Circular  are 
one  and  the  same.  Seventh,  recent  investigation  has  brought  to  light  the  fact 
that  among  the  Notes  to  the  Discipline  of  1796,  quoting  from  the  tenth  edition, 
1798,  page  49,  top  paragraph,  the  following  statement  is  made :  "  When  Mr.  Wes- 
ley drew  up  apian  of  government  for  our  church  in  America,  he  desired  that  no 
more  elders  should  be  ordained  in  the  first  instance  than  were  absolutely  neces- 
sary, and  that  the  work  on  the  continent  should  be  divided  between  them  in  re- 
spect to  the  duties  of  their  ofiice.  The  general  conference  accordingly  elected 
twelve  elders  for  the  above  purpose,"  etc.*  The  italics  are  by  the  writer,  to  point 
out  the  similarity  of  the  language  with  Moore's  account  and  Wesley's  account  in 
the  Circular  letter:  *'  I  have  drawn  up  a  little  sketch,"  ''drawing  up  a  plan," 
"  drew  up  a  plan,"  etc.  Evidently  this  reference  in  the  notes,  as  cited,  reveals 
one  fact  as  to  the  "plan  of  government"  contained  in  "a  little  sketch,"  as 
given  from  memory  by  Coke  and  Asbury,  and  as  it  is  not  found  in  the  Circular 
Letter,  it  is  proof  conclusive  that  the  "  sketch  "  and  the  **  Circular  "  are  not  one 
and  the  same.  Eighth,  and  finally,  it  is  antecedently  a  moral  certainty  that 
Wesley  would  have  sent  written  directions,  a  true  "plan  of  government,"  for 
the  direction  and  control  of  his  assistants.  Coke  and  Asbury,  as  he  sent  the  "  Cir- 
cular Letter  "  specifically  for  the  information  and  direction  of  the  Societies. 

*  Lee,  in  his  "  History,"  pp.  94,  95,  says  :  "  At  this  conference  there  were  thirteen  preachers 
elected  to  the  Elder's  office,"  and  he  gives  their  names.  And  so  does  Coke  in  his  Journal.  See 
Dr.  Tigert's  limited  edition,  pp.  13,  14. 


188 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


latter  confesses  that  he  was  compelled  to  concur  in  them,  where- 
upon a  brief  council  with  ten  of  the  nearest  preachers  was  held,  who 
were  not  told  the  contents  of  the  "sketch,"  but  were  simply  com- 
forted with  the  assurance  that  Wesley  had  yielded  at  last  to  their 
solicitations  as  to  the  matter  of  the  ordinances,  and  Asbury  pro- 
posed a  general  conference  immediately  of  all  the  preachers  with 
the  purpose  of  forming  a  Church.^  Wesley  never  authorized  nor 
dreamed  of  such  a  Conference  to  pass  upon  what  he  had  done,  as 
it  did  not  for  a  moment  enter  into  his  plan  to  establish  a  Church 
of  Methodists  in  America.  Prior  to  the  assembling  of  the  Christ- 
mas Conference  Coke  and  Asbury,  at  Perry  Hall,  concocted  a 
Church  organization,  and  opened  their  plan  to  the  Conference 
after  it  had  assembled.  It  was  to  be  an  American  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  with  three  orders  of  ministers,  under  exclusive 
ministerial  rule;  and  that  it  might  have  the  semblance  of  Wes- 
ley's approval,  the  "little  sketch"  was  suppressed,  and  finally 
destroyed,  as  it  has  never  seen  the  light;  Coke's  letter  of  appoint- 
ment was  not  made  known  to  the  Conference  because  of  its  clear 
implications  that  he  could  not  have  given  "counsel"  or  "recom- 
mended" what  was  being  done,  but  intended,  as  carrying  out 
their  wishes,  to  "continue  under  his  care,"  that  they  should  be 
an  autonomy,  but,  like  that  of  the  English  societies,  absolutely 
under  his  control  while  he  lived.  The  Letter  to  the  Societies 
was  suppressed  in  a  whole  paragraph  of  it  relative  to  the  use  of 
the  abridged  Prayer  Book  he  had  sent  over,  because  it  also  plainly 
implicated  his  own  absolute  control.  Not  willing  to  break  utterly 
with  Wesley,  and  fearing  to  return  and  render  an  account  to  him 
of  these  misdoings  as  to  his  purpose,  Coke  secured  the  consent  of 
Asbury  that  they  should  be  denominated  "superintendents,"  not 
daring  in  this  to  openly  disobey  his  instructions,  which  he  un- 
doubtedly made  known  to  Asbury,  as  to  the  title  of  Bishop;  and 
also  to  incorporate  a  resolution  that  during  Wesley's  life  they 
would  in  matters  of  church  government  be  controlled  by  him. 
All  these  allegations  have  already  been  inoontestably  proven  in 
this  work.   Further,  it  is  in  proof  that  the  historical  sketch  to  the 

1  Six  out  of  the  ten  of  these  neighborhood  preachers  dissented  to  Asbury's  plan 
for  an  Episcopal  government,  but  they  agreed  to  a  call  for  a  General  Conference. 
See  the  facts  set  forth  in  a  series  of  articles,  "Methodist  Chronology,"  by 
"  W.  C.  P.,"  (W.  C.  Pool)  in  second  volume  of  Methodist  Protestant,  No.  34,  for 
August  24,  1832,  on  page  268  of  bound  volume.  The  evidence  is  important  as 
showing  that  the  Episcopacy  of  Asbury  and  Coke  was  not  only  without  Wesley's 
knowledge  and  consent  at  the  time,  but  it  was  unacceptable  to  those  preachers, 
who  were  first  consulted,  at  least  a  full  moiety  of  them. 


SUMMATION  OF  INCONTESTABLE  EVIDENCE  189 


first  Discipline  makes  no  mention  of  its  being  formulated  by 
Wesley's  counsel  and  recommendation  of  an  Episcopal  Church, 
for  the  reason  that  such  a  bald  misstatement  would  have  been 
detected  by  Wesley  when  it  came  under  his  eye.  The  Min- 
utes and  Discipline,  as  published  by  Dickins  in  1795,  contain 
a  very  different  historical  statement  as  to  the  organization  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  but  this  was  four  years  after  Wes- 
ley's decease.  In  fine,  these  several  historical  accounts  were 
doctored  by  Coke  and  Asbury  to  suit  the  exigencies  and  make  it 
appear  to  future  generations  that  the  Christmas  Conference  and 
its  doings  had  Wesley's  approval.  The  certificate  of  ordination 
of  Coke  was  not  exhibited  until  Drew,  Coke's  biographer,  ex- 
humed it  from  his  posthumous  papers;  Coke,  Asbury,  and 
Moore  suppressed  their  knowledge  of  Wesley's  solemn  charge  to 
the  first  not  to  take  the  title  of  Bishop,  the  first  two  during 
their  lives,  and  the  last  for  forty  years  after  it  occurred.  Add 
these  allegations  as  matters  of  fact  to  those  before  given,  and 
the  reader  has  a  catenation  of  proofs  on  which  McCaine  based 
his  blunt  declaration  that  the  system  of  government  inaugurated 
in  1784  was  "surreptitiously"  introduced  by  the  prime  actors 
in  it. 

The  writer  will  put  it  again  mildly,  as  a  conclusion  to  which 
every  impartial  reader  must  come,  that  the  proceedings  were 
unjustifiable  and  unwarrantable  in  the  premises.  They  are  suffi- 
ciently grave  to  demand  that  the  historical  preface  to  the  book 
of  Discipline,  if  not  entirely  expunged  in  the  interests  of  the 
truth  of  history,  as  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
shall  be  so  modified  as  to  relieve  Mr.  Wesley  of  the  imputation 
that  he  was  the  author  of  the  church  polity  now  known  as  Metho- 
dist Episcopacy.  ^   The  reader  who  would  see  the  case  categorically 

1  See  Rev.  Dr.  Warren's  article  in  Methodist  Magazine  for  January-February, 
1892,  entitled  "The  Portico  to  Our  Book  of  Discipline."  It  treats  of  the  very 
section  of  the  M.  E.  Discipline  bearing  upon  this  subject,  and  which  he  declares 
"misleads  the  reader,"  and  proposed  a  substitute  section  which  relieved  Wesley 
of  the  unverifiable  statement  that  he  originated  the  Episcopal  system  in  American 
Methodism.  The  ensuing  General  Conference,  however,  the  matter  not  having 
been  brought  forward,  did  nothing  toward  correcting  this  canonized  fable.  It 
will  yet  however  be  done.  Still  it  stands  in  the  nervous  words  of  Dr.  Stephens : 
"as  a  matter  of  fact  that  this  misleading  declaration,  false  to  fact  and  false  to 
history,  was  embalmed  in  the  place  of  honor  in  the  Discipline  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  There  it  stands  to-day,  a  fable  apotheosized,  a  monumental 
testimony  to  the  weakness  of  great  minds,  the  canonization  of  error  intended  to 
mislead,  the  evidence  of  the  unscrupulous  ambition  of  the  first  American  Bishops, 
and  of  the  over-credulity  of  the  early  Methodist  preachers." 


190  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


stated  is  referred  to  McCaine's  thirty-seven  reasons  at  the  con- 
clusion of  his  "Defence  of  the  Truth."  Could  Asbury  have  been 
content  to  wait,  and  meantime  accept  Wesley's  plan  for  the  seven 
years  that  intervened  to  his  death,  this  scandal  Avould  have  been 
anticipated;  but  he  was  impatient  of  AVesley's  supervision,  and 
made  the  coming  of  Coke  the  occasion  to  carry  out  the  matured 
purpose  of  years, —  his  Episcopal  headship  for  the  American 
Methodists.  That  the  same  result  would  probably  have  ensued 
had  he  deferred  action  until  after  Wesley's  decease  may  be  ad- 
mitted; the  same  force  of  personal  magnetism  and  dominating 
will  that  carried  the  preachers  with  him  under  the  exceptional 
circumstances  named,  would  have  carried  in  1792,  and  forestalled 
the  revolt  and  secession  of  0' Kelly.  That  there  were  not  a 
few  extenuations  of  Coke  and  Asbury 's  course  may  be  admitted, 
and,  in  view  of  human  infirmities,  of  ambition  and  errors  of 
judgment,  there  is  no  need  that  moral  turpitude  should  be 
imputed. 

The  reader  is  now  prepared  to  consider,  maugre  the  glamour  of 
rhetoric  and  the  confidence  of  unqualified  asseveration,  the  case 
stated  by  Dr.  Stevens,  the  third  party  to  this  controversy. 
His  argument,  though  but  an  imperfect  rehash  of  the  exploded 
positions  reviewed  in  these  pages,  has  come  down  to  this  day; 
with  Methodist  Episcopalians  entirely  satisfactory.  True,  he 
directs  his  attack  more  against  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church- 
men, who  ridicule  the  pretensions  of  Episcopal  Methodists,  and 
not  against  the  impregnable  positions  of  McCaine.  Indeed,  it  is 
doubtful  if  Stevens  ever  read  McCaine,  or  a  man  of  his  average 
fairness  would  have  been  deterred  from  such  overconfident  dicta. 
Traversing  it  carefully,  as  the  writer  has  just  done,  and  he  invites 
the  reader  to  do  the  same  (see  "History  of  Methodism,"  Vol.  II. 
ch.  vii.),  nothing  is  found  new  to  the  question  not  already 
covered.  There  is,  however,  one  fatal  admission  which  invali- 
dates the  whole:  "If  Wesley's  strong  repugnance  to  the  mere 
name  of  bishop  had  been  expressed  before  its  adoption  by  the 
American  Church,  it  would  probably  not  have  been  adopted." 
The  sufiicient  answer  is,  as  shown,  that  three  men  possessed  the 
fact  at  the  time,  and  they  suppressed  it:  Henry  Moore,  Thomas 
Coke,  and  Francis  Asbury.  The  logical  inevitable  is,  that  men 
who  could  and  did  suppress  this  one  fact  in  the  service  of  a  common 
cause  inimical  to  Wesley's  intentions,  could  and  did  suppress  all 
the  other  facts  which  render  invalid  Dr.  Stevens's  argument 
and  that  of  every  historian  who  has  attempted  to  vindicate  the 


STEVENS'S  ARGUMENT  ANSWERED 


191 


real  authors  of  Methodist  Episcopacy.  He  may  be  dismissed  by 
repeating,  as  applicable  to  himself  and  those  who  think  with 
him,  his  own  summary  disposal:  "The  man  who  gainsays  such 
evidence  must  be  given  up  as  incorrigible.  There  can  be  no 
reasoning  with  him." 


CHAPTER  XI 


Surcease  of  expulsions  in  Baltimore  after  Dr.  Bond's  return  from  the  General 
Conference  for  strategic  reasons,  but  extensively  renewed  elsewhere —  Dr. 
Sellers's  defection,  and  the  effect  of  the  action  of  the  General  Conference  on 
Reformers  of  several  grades  —  Dr.  Buckley  on  "  rights  "  ;  Alexander  McCaine's 
settler  for  him  and  others;  Buckley  on  "  withdrawal "  of  the  Reformers  ana- 
lyzed—  Organization  of  Reformers  in  Baltimore,  and  purchase  of  St.  John's 
church;  the  first  realty —  First  "  Methodist  "  church  of  Pittsburgh;  the  whole 
history  of  the  contention  as  never  before  presented — Reform  in  Cincinnati  as 
early  as  1822 ;  Union  Society  of  1825 ;  expulsions  and  Rev.  Truman  Bishop's 
untimely  death;  Asa  Shinn  formally  withdraws  from  the  old  Church  —  Pro- 
ceedings against  Reformers  in  North  Carolina ;  leaders  in  the  movement  on 
both  sides  —  Lynchburg,  Va.,  expulsions  and  organization  of  Reformers  — Ten- 
nessee expulsions  and  organization  of  Reformers  —  The  Mutual  Eights  and 
Christian  Intelligencer,  with  Dorsey,  editor. 

At  the  close  of  the  General  Conference  of  1828,  Dr.  Bond 
returned  to  Baltimore  feathered  and  flushed  with  victory  over  his 
quondam  friends  of  Eeform.  Having  achieved  his  object,  the 
pacific  strategy  was  once  more  resorted  to,  as  no  man  knew  better 
than  he  the  intrinsic  worth  to  Methodism  and  the  high  personal 
character  of  the  men  and  women  whose  cause  he  had  forsaken, 
and  whom  he  well  understood  could  not  be  browbeaten  into  sub- 
mission. For  the  time  the  prosecutions  ceased  in  Maryland. 
The  position  of  the  Church  as  defined  by  the  action  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  in  its  Report  upon  the  Memorial  of  the  Reformers 
could  not  be  misunderstood,  and  the  effect  was  as  might  be 
expected :  it  utterly  discouraged  the  large  latent  element  in  the 
Church  who  favored  Reform,  but  with  bated  breath  awaited  the 
turning  of  the  scale.  These,  as  well  as  many  of  stronger  con- 
victions, who  could  not  face  the  cost  of  heroic  struggle  for  a 
principle  with  all  the  odds  against  them,  subsided  and  put  away 
whatever  evidence  they  had  shown  of  sympathy  with  the  move- 
ment.^   Fifty  years  after.  Bishop  M'Tyeire,  whose  knowledge  of 

1  A  notable  example  was  the  case  of  Dr.  Sellers,  brother-in-law  to  Dr.  John 
Emory.  During  the  Reform  years  preceding  1828,  no  man  in  Maryland  had  more 
pronounced  opinions  than  he,  derived,  it  may  be,  from  Dr.  Emory,  not,  he  says, 
as  to  the  elective  eldership,  but  lay  rights.   The  tergiversation  of  Emory,  how- 

192 


BIGHTS''  AND      WITHDRAWAL''  CONSIDERED  193 


the  subject  was  derived  from  partisan  sources,  and  speaking  from 
a  point  of  view  whicli  limited  his  retrospection,  yet  more  fairly 
presented  than  by  the  earlier  historians  of  Methodism,  says: 
"But  now  when  the  radical  tendencies  of  these  things  were  seen, 
the  conservatives  closed  ranks  and  stood  firm.  .  .  .  Thoughtful 
men  must  not  be  counted  on  to  join  in  a  theoretical  and  destruc- 
tive reform  because  every  pin  and  screw  in  the  tabernacle  that 
has  sheltered  them  is  not  exactly  to  their  notion."^  In  this  he 
speaks  as  one  of  the  "  divinely  authorized  expounders  "  who  alone 
have  rights  in  the  Methodist  Church.  Yes,  the  "  conservatives 
closed  ranks,"  —  having  finally  lost  their  own  contention,  being 
overweighted  by  the  Episcopal  power,  the  ministerial  right  to 
elect  presiding  elders, — they  lost  interest,  and,  indeed,  were 
surprised,  not  a  few  of  them,  when  the  Church  itself,  as  repre- 
sented by  its  membership,  was  awakened  to  a  consciousness  that 
they  also  must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case  and  the  New  Testament 
precedents  of  church  polity,  have  rights  which  they  humbly 
petitioned  might  be  restored  to  them.  Yes,  against  these  rights 
they  closed  ranks.  Eights!  they  were  nothing  but  the  "pins  and 
screws  of  the  tabernacle  that  had  sheltered  them,"  and  all  this 
ado  because  it  is  not  "exactly  to  their  notion."  Yes,  it  was,  and 
still  is,  largely  the  cavalier  treatment  of  a  great  fundamental 
principle  of  Eepresentation. 

Have  the  prevailing  sentiments  of  a  later  day  than  M'Tyeire's 
changed  any?  Not  a  jot  or  tittle.  There  is  something  in  the 
fumes  of  vested  power  that  keeps  the  brains  of  otherwise  clear- 
headed men  fuddled  when  they  talk  or  write  on  this  subject  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.    As  late  as  September,  1890,  Dr. 

ever,  naturally  affected  him,  so  that  on  his  removal  to  Pittsburgh  in  1827  his  ac- 
tive participation  in  Reform  grew  weaker,  and  after  the  action  of  the  General 
Conference  of  1828,  he  ceased  to  cooperate  altogether.  But  there  is  no  evidence 
that  he  changed  his  opinions.  Even  in  the  letter  he  wrote  Robert  Emory  for  the 
biography  of  his  father,  the  Bishop,  at  the  solicitation  of  Robert  in  1839,  he  utters 
no  word  that  can  be  construed  into  a  change  of  sentiment  on  his  part,  but  he  dis- 
tinctly states  that  lay-representation  was  the  objective  of  his  efforts  at  the  tinle. 
Why,  then,  did  he  give  over  advocating  the  principle?  For  the  same,  and  even 
stronger  reasons,  as  he  was  allied  to  Emory  by  marriage,  that  induced  hundreds 
of  others  to  give  over  public  cooperation.  He  found  his  family  and  social  ties, 
his  business  interests,  as  a  physician,  and  perhaps  more  than  all,  the  seeming 
hopelessness  of  the  struggle,  under  the  combination  against  it,  for  some  years  to 
come,  if  ever.  He  bent  to  the  storm,  as  did  hundreds  of  others  when  called  upon 
to  face  the  tremendous  odds  against  them,  so  that  no  estimate  of  the  extent  of 
Reform  sentiments  can  be  drawn  from  the  comparative  few  who,  "  sink  or  swim, 
survive  or  perish,"  openly  identified  themselves  with  the  Associated  Reformers. 
1  "  History  of  Methodism,"  p.  573. 
VOL.  11 — o 


194 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


Buckley,  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  everywhere 
acknowledged  as  a  representative  man  of  his  Church,  thus  dis- 
courses on  the  question :  The  whole  system  of  Methodism,  like 
every  other  church  government,  is  a  compromise  of  natural  rights 
for  cooperation.  Church  government  does  not  derive  its  just 
powers  primarily  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  but  from  the 
Word  and  Providence  of  God.  It  can  never  consistently  work 
direct  injustice  and  oppression;  but  can  and  does  require  the 
surrender  of  all  abstract  ^rights,'  the  surrender  of  which  is 
necessary  to  its  existence,  authority,  and  greatest  efficiency.  It 
derives  its  working  power  from  the  'consent  of  the  governed,'  for 
if  they  will  not  consent  they  have  power  to  'go  out  from  it.' " 
In  the  same  connection,  September  11,  he  also  makes  the  bald 
declaration,  "  The  Reformers  of  1820  were  allowed  to  withdraw, 
and  formed  a  new  sect."  Dr.  Bond  was  given  credit,  earlier  in 
this  volume,  for  having  created  all  the  arguments  which  have 
since  become  stock  against  the  Reformers  of  1820,  and  every  year 
since.  In  the  first  of  the  citations  made  from  Dr.  Buckley  he 
simply  rehearses  Dr.  Bond,  though  it  may  be  unconsciously.  At 
the  time  this  writer  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  summarily  dis- 
posed of  the  medley  of  misstatements  and  fallacies  as  follows : 
"Methodist  Episcopacy  was  not  a  'compromise  of  natural  rights,' 
but  a  well-defined  usurpation  of  them.  See  the  facts  of  history 
anent  it.  The  Word  shows  conclusively  that  the  governed  gave 
their  consent  and  the  just  powers  were  derived  from  them.  See 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  brethren  lay 
great  stress,  when  the  anomalies  of  their  government  are  under 
review,  on  the  'Providence  of  God'  as  responsible  for  them. 
That  is  to  say,  facetiously,  they  were  not  created  by  good  men 
who  loved  the  preeminence,  but,  like  Topsey  in  'Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,'  they  'just  growed.'  Their  system  has  worked  dire  injus- 
tice and  oppression ;  witness  the  private  history  of  many  an  itin- 
erant, and  the  whole  history  of  the  Reform  movement.  The 
argument  of  last  resort  of  the  anti-reformers  of  1820-30  was,  if 
you  don't  like  it,  leave.    So  says  Dr.  Buckley." 

But  that  this  matter  of  rights  may  be  finally  disposed  of,  let 
Alexander  McCaine  take  Dr.  Buckley  in  hand,  as  he  did  Drs. 
Emory  and  Bond,  in  his  analysis  of  the  Report  of  1828.  "If 
the  preachers  had  this  right  'it  must  be  either  a  natural  or 
acquired  right.  If  a  natural  right,  then  being  founded  in  nature 
it  must  be  common  to  men  as  men.'  According  to  this  reason- 
ing, if  the  preachers,  'as  men,'  had  a  'natural  right'  to  choose 


THE  AliGUMENT  ON  BOTH  SIDES 


195 


for  themselves  what  form  of  government  they  pleased,  the  mem- 
bers, 'as  men/  had  a  'natural  right '  to  choose  a  form  of  govern- 
ment for  themselves  likewise.  Nay,  the  members  had  as  good  a 
right  to  choose  a  government  for  the  preachers  as  the  preachers 
had  to  form  one  for  the  members.  *  If  it  be  alleged  to  be  an 
acquired  right,  then  it  must  have  been  acquired  either  in  conse- 
quence of  becoming  Christians,  or  of  becoming  Methodists.  If 
the  former,  it  devolves  on  those  Methodist  preachers,  or  their 
advocates,  who  may  assert  that  the  preachers  in  1784  had  a  right 
to  choose  the  episcopal  form  of  government  for  the  societies  to 
'prove  that  this  right  is  conferred  by  the  Holy  Scriptures;  and 
it  is  also  binding  on  them  to  prove  that  the  Scriptures  impose 
on'  the  members,  'the  corresponding  obligation  to  grant  the 
claim.'  The  Holy  Scriptures  gave  no  authority  to  Methodist 
preachers,  to  adopt  the  episcopal  form  of  government  for  the 
Methodist  societies  when  the  church  was  organized ;  of  course  no 
right  can  be  proved  from  them.  Or  if  the  latter  be  alleged,  viz., 
that  it  has  been  acquired  in  consequence  of  becoming  Methodists, 
then  it  must  have  been  either  by  some  conventional  compact  or 
by  some  obligatory  principle,  in  the  economy  of  Methodism,  to 
which  as  then  organized  the  claimants  voluntarily  attached  them- 
selves. That  the  preachers  derived  a  right  to  adopt  the  episco- 
pal form  of  government  from  any  'conventional  compact '  no  one 
will  affirm;  for  no  such  'compact'  was  ever  made.  Indeed,  the 
societies  were  not  even  consulted,  much  less  a  'conventional  com- 
pact '  entered  into.  That  the  preachers  did  not  derive  a  right 
from  any  'obligatory  principle  in  the  economy  of  Methodism '  is 
equally  evident.  For  it  was  the  peculiar  glory  of  Methodism, 
'as  then  organized,'  to  receive  into  its  societies  'all  who  desired 
to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come.'  If  any  were  expelled  from  the 
fellowship  of  the  Methodists,  they  were  not  thereby  excommuni- 
cated from  their  own  churches.  Expulsion  from  the  one  did  not 
imply  expulsion  from  the  other.  These  were  the  'principles  of 
Methodism  as  then  organized,'  and  from  these  principles  the 
travelling  preachers  derived  no  right  to  organize  a  church  and 
adopt  the  episcopal  form  of  government  for  the  societies  without 
their  consent."  This  is  an  elaborate  disposition  of  the  whole 
matter  of  rights,  and  a  demonstration  offered,  that  antecedently 
nothing  can  be  claimed  for  the  preachers  which  cannot  by  ana- 
logical reasoning  be  claimed  for  the  membership. 

As  to  Dr.  Buckley's  second  declaration,  "The  Reformers  of 
1820  were  allowed  to  withdraw,  and  formed  a  new  sect,"  except 


196 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  last  sentence,  it  is  neither  true  in  whole  nor  in  part.  At  the 
time  of  its  publication,  before  the  writer  could  put  his  editorial 
pen  into  it,  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray  of  Maryland,  not  given  to  rash  and 
unbrotherly  treatment  of  our  Old  Side  preachers,  felt  impelled  to 
its  review,  and  it  was  published  in  lieu  of  an  editorial  answer. 
It  is  courteous,  though  searching,  and,  though  marked  copies  were 
sent  in  addition  to  the  regular  exchanges  of  the  papers,  and  request 
made  in  various  subsequent  numbers  for  retraction  of  the  state- 
ment, no  notice  was  ever  taken  of  it.  Now,  while  it  is  true  that 
the  next  best  thing  for  the  offender,  when  detected  in  a  misstate- 
ment, to  a  frank  and  honorable  correction  of  it,  is  silence  on  his 
part,  and  as  this  was  not  the  first  offence,  Dr.  Buckley  may  credit 
his  discourtesy  with  this  perpetuation  of  his  fault  to  posterity. 
Rare,  indeed,  have  been  the  instances  in  which  the  press  of  our 
sister  Church  has  corrected  unhistorical  averments  as  to  the  con- 
troversy of  1820-30.  In  most  cases  they  are  made  through  dense 
ignorance  of  the  facts,  while  in  others  even  charity  will  not  allow 
an  excuse.  As  to  the  misstatement  itself,  look  at  the  naked  facts. 
"The  Reformers  of  1820  were  allowed  to  withdraw."  Has  it  not 
been  shown  that  instead  they  were  expelled;  and  has  it  not  been 
shown  that  those  who  withdrew  did  so  without  being  "  allowed  " 
to  do  it?  The  only  sense  in  which  this  could  be  true  is  that  those 
so  withdrawing  were  furnished,  at  their  request,  with  certificates 
of  membership  or  testimonials  of  good  standing.  It  has  been,  and 
shall  be  more  fully,  proven,  that  in  no  known  instance  was  this 
ever  granted,  though  almost  always  requested.  If  these  requests 
had  been  complied  with,  then  with  some  shadow  of  truth  it  might 
be  said  "they  were  allowed  to  withdraw."  But  as  the  case 
stands,  this  averment  of  a  high  official  of  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church  is  neither  true  in  whole  nor  in  part.  The  only  thing 
it  evidences  is,  as  nervously  expressed  by  a  recent  writer,  "the 
vitality  of  a  historic  lie."  ^ 

The  reverse  effect  of  the  action  of  the  General  Conference  was 
also  exhibited.  "For  the  accommodation  of  themselves,  their 
families,  and  such  of  their  fellow-citizens  as  are  desirous  of 
worshipping  God  with  them,  the  brethren  have  purchased  St. 
John's  church,  in  Liberty  Street,  a  handsome  and  commodious 
house,  in  which  they  have  public  worship  three  times  each  Sab- 
bath, and  the  Christian  ordinances  duly  administered.  .  .  .  The 
attending  congregation  is  large  and  respectable.  The  members 
of  both  Union  Societies  regularly  attend  and  worship  with  their 

1  Exceptions  to  the  rule  uoted  later  as  discovered  by  the  writer. 


BEFOEM  CONVENTIONS  CALLED  FOR  NOV.  1828  197 


expelled  brethren."  The  pulpit  was  filled  by  the  expelled  min- 
isters and  preachers,  as  well  as  by  Snethen,  Dorsey,  Pool,  and 
M.  M.  Henkle,  when  the  last  was  in  the  city.  This  was  un- 
doubtedly the  first  piece  of  church  realty  held  by  the  Associated 
Reformers.  The  "Methodist  Church  in  the  City  of  Pittsburgh," 
without  the  "Episcopal,"  was  incorporated  by  the  legislature  of 
Pennsylvania,  March  5,  1828,  a  case  to  be  considered  presently. 
The  facts  stated  as  to  the  purchase  of  St.  John's  are  published  in 
the  Mutual  Bights  for  May,  1828.  How  long  it  was  before  that 
date  the  writer  has  not  been  able  to  ascertain,  but  as  the  property 
was  then,  in  fact  and  law,  held  by  the  Reformers,  its  priority 
can  scarcely  be  challenged.  They  were  regularly  organized  as  a 
society  of  "  The  Associated  Methodist  Reformers "  under  the 
conventional  agreement  of  November,  1827.  At  the  June, 
1828,  meeting  of  the  Society  fifty-two  were  received,  nearly  all 
of  them  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  most  of  them 
of  long  standing.  Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  William  C.  Pool, 
and  William  Bawden  were  received  as  members  and  ministers  of 
the  association.  Daniel  Gildea,  whose  license  to  exhort  had 
been  withheld  by  the  Quarterly  Conference  on  account  of  being  a 
member  of  the  Union  Society,  was  received  and  duly  licensed. 
He  was  a  venerable  man,  and  one  of  Wesley's  converts.  At  the 
monthly  meeting  for  July  thirty-three  more  were  received.  These 
increased  the  association  to  over  214  members.  "The  expelled 
preachers  stand  higher  in  public  estimation  than  they  did  previous 
to  their  expulsion.  The  citizens  view  them  as  good  men  persecuted 
for  righteousness'  sake;  and  the  ministers  of  other  denominations 
frequently  call  upon  them  to  officiate  to  their  congregations."^ 
Everywhere  the  Union  Societies  resolved  to  continue  their 
organization  until  the  Convention,  now  called  by  the  Committee, 
to  whom  it  was  intrusted  by  the  November  meeting,  to  assemble 
at  St.  John's  church,  Baltimore,  November  10,  1828.  Delegates 
were  requested  to  report,  on  their  arrival  in  the  city,  to  James 
R.  Williams,  John  J.  Harrod,  and  Dr.  S.  K.  Jennings,  to  be 
assigned  to  homes.  It  was  a  crucial  period  in  Reform,  everything 
depending  upon  the  showing  it  would  make  at  this  Convention. 
The  lines  were  closely  drawn,  and  the  whole  power,  patronage, 
and  persuasive  force  of  the  Church  brought  to  bear  to  prevent 
withdrawals  by  every  intimidation  and  influence  possible.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  hundreds  were  so  deterred.  Baltimore  Metho- 
dism, with  its  three  thousand  members,  among  whom  Reform  was 

1  Mutual  Bights,  Vol.  IV.  p.  393. 


198  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


dominant  in  1826-27,  now  showed  but  a  few  hundred  who  were 
ready  to  cast  the  die  and  accept  the  consequences  of  separation. 
True,  nearly  half  of  these  were  male  members  of  long  and  high 
standing,  and  they  carried  with  them  the  substantial  sympathy 
of  the  Christian  community.  Everywhere  the  same  general 
result  was  seen.  Only  those  of  heroic  mould  could  face  the  sac- 
rifice separation  demanded,  but,  as  will  be  seen,  the  numbers 
were  respectable  and  the  fidelity  to  principle  marked.  The  fourth 
volume  of  the  Mutual  Rights  concluded  with  the  July  number, 
and  its  salient  contents  have  already  been  given.  By  a  business 
compact  among  the  Reformers  of  Baltimore,  and  patronage  else- 
where, it  was  succeeded  by  the  Mutual  Rights  and  Christian 
Intelligencer,  under  the  editorial  control  of  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  and 
a  committee  of  publication. 

The  scenes  of  active  contention  were  transferred  to  Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati,  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  Tennessee.  Let  brief 
consideration  be  given  to  these  in  order.  There  had  been  a  strong 
and  dominating  Eeform  influence  at  the  First  Methodist  church 
in  the  old  First  Street  and  new  Smithfield  Street  churches  (one 
in  corporation),  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  from  an  early  period.  At  the 
time  of  the  incorporation,  March  5,  1828,  seven  of  the  nine  trus- 
tees and  a  large  proportion  of  the  membership  were  openly  in 
sympathy  with  the  movement.  August  4,  1828,  the  realty  of  the 
church,  consisting  of  the  old  and  new  church  with  a  cemetery 
property,  was  formally,  on  motion  of  Dr.  H.  D.  Sellers,  trans- 
ferred to  the  new  board  of  trustees,  minus  the  word  "Episcopal." 
The  reason  has  been  a  question  in  dispute.  Eev.  Dr.  Brown  says, 
"  It  was  most  significantly  left  out  of  the  charter,  as  indicating  the 
reform  sentiment  prevalent  when  the  instrument  was  obtained."' 
But  Eev.  Dr.  Charles  W.  Smith,  in  a  sermon  on  the  centennial 
of  Methodism  in  Pittsburgh,  says  it  was  done  to  "  give  possible 
grounds  for  perversion  of  the  trust."  The  question  on  its  merits 
cannot  be  traversed  here.^  Litigation  followed  between  the  par- 
ties, into  which  the  church  was  divided  on  Reform,  with  the 

1  See  "Closing  Services  of  the  First  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  Fifth 
Avenue,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May  11-15,  1892."  Pittsburgh.  1892.  Svo.  145  pp. 
Cloth.  Semi-centennial.  The  whole  question  as  to  the  incorporation,  and  the 
division  of  the  property,  and  the  outcome  of  the  controversy  on  Reform  is  here 
fully  exposed,  with  a  clear  vindication  of  Charles  Avery,  the  principal  party  to 
the  act  of  incorporation  as  to  the  motives  impelling  him  in  his  course,  as  well  as 
of  the  Reformers  of  that  day.  The  property  built  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  one- 
half  value  has  since  been  disposed  of  to  such  advantage  that  two  churches  have 
been  erected  out  of  it. 


SCENES  OF  ACTIVE  CONTENTIONS 


199 


result  of  a  legal  decision  in  favor  of  the  Reformers.  They,  with 
unprecedented  fairness  and  generosity,  agreed  to  take  one-half 
the  value  and  surrender  the  properties  to  the  adhering  members. 
No  such  example  was  ever  set  by  the  anti-reformers,  however 
equitable  the  claim  might  be  to  church  property. 

In  June,  1829,  these  Reformers  sent  a  call  to  Rev.  George 
Brown,  yet  a  minister  in  full  standing  in  the  old  Church,  to 
become  their  pastor  under  a  formal  organization  of  an  "  Associated 
Methodist  Church."  This  led  to  his  withdrawal  from  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  and  acceptance  of  the  call.  An  effort  was 
made  to  prevent  his  preaching  in  the  Smithfield  Street  church, 
but  a  compromise  was  effected  by  which  the  two  parties  held 
Sabbath  service  twice  a  day  at  hours  that  did  not  conflict.  But 
this  state  of  amity  did  not  long  continue.  The  anti-reformers 
brought  suit  for  the  possession  of  the  property,  and  while  this 
was  pending  disgraceful  scenes  occurred.  The  anti-reformers 
took  covert  possession,  removed  the  locks,  and  forbade  the  Re- 
formers to  enter.  This  trick  was  offset  by  a  stealthy  entry  of  the 
Reformers,  ending  in  another  compromise  and  mutual  occupancy. 
The  Reformers,  that  their  title  might  not  be  invalidated,  organ- 
ized as  the  "Methodist  Church  in  Pittsburgh."  Much  bitterness 
prevailed  among  the  contending  parties.  On  one  occasion  the 
Reformers'  sexton,  having  made  the  preparation  for  the  Lord's 
Supper,  the  Presiding  Elder  asked  who  had  prepared  it,  and,  on 
learning,  said,  "  Take  them  away ;  we  want  none  of  your  radical 
bread  and  wine."  This  same  Elder,  David  Sharpe,  at  a  camp- 
meeting  communion  service,  after  inviting  Christians  of  other 
denominations,  leaned  over  the  pulpit  stand,  and  said  that  the 
"rads  and  schismatic  scamps,  he  did  not  mean  to  invite  them." 
Meantime,  the  seven  trustees  and  other  Reformers  were  expelled 
by  the  preacher  in  charge.  Rev.  William  Lambdin.  The  suit  at 
law  was  not  decided  by  the  full  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  until 
October,  1832,  with  the  result  already  narrated.  The  Reformers 
numbered  over  two  hundred.  A  statement  says,  "  We  have  about 
130  male  members,  among  them  14  class  leaders,  4  local  preachers, 
and  7  trustees.  There  are  many  female  members,  the  number 
not  ascertained  until  they  are  arranged  in  classes."  Many  others 
afterward  united  with  them,  making  a  strong,  compact  church  of 
great  influence  in  the  community. 

As  early  as  1822  the  Methodists  of  Cincinnati  were  aroused  to 
the  true  nature  of  their  church  government  by  the  arbitrary 
administration  of  the  pastor,  Leroy  Swormstead,  and  his  assist- 


200 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ant,  John  F.  Wright,  which  led  to  a  circular  letter,  August  9, 
1823,  strongly  recommending  the  introduction  of  the  representa- 
tive principle  into  the  polity.  The  charges  which  were  preferred 
against  Swormstead  for  maladministration  were  dismissed  by  the 
Ohio  Conference.  Xovember  17,  1825,  a  Union  Society  was 
formed  by  the  Keformers,  and  with  it  almost  all  the  old  and 
influential  members  united.  In  1827,  Kev,  John  F.  Wright  was 
sent,  as  preacher  in  charge  of  the  station.  The  church  had  some 
years  before  been  made  a  corporate  body,  and  the  nine  trustees 
annually  elected  were  advocates  of  the  reformation.  On  the  17th 
of  July  fourteen  members  of  the  Society  were  met  by  a  com- 
mittee, appointed  by  the  preacher,  with  a  demand  that  they 
withdraw  from  the  Society  and  cease  to  patronize  the  Mutual 
Rights.  Charges  were  preferred,  but  so  strong  was  the  Keform 
element  that  efforts  to  expel  them  failed.  They  were  suspended 
until  the  Quarterly  Conference,  when  the  accused  demanded,  as 
was  their  disciplinary  right,  trial  before  the  Church.  This  was  re- 
fused, and  ten  lay-members,  after  a  mock  trial  before  a  committee 
of  Wright's  selection,  were  expelled.^  After  careful  and  prayer- 
ful deliberation,  the  Eeformers,  bereft  of  all  hope  of  redress  from 
the  report  of  the  General  Conference  of  1828,  assembled,  August 
18,  1828,  determined  to  unite  with  their  expelled  brethren,  and 
formed  an  organization  of  279.  Fifteen  classes  were  organized, 
and  much  sympathy  was  received  from  the  religious  community. 

Rev.  Truman  Bishop,  an  itinerant  of  some  years'  good  stand- 
ing, who  had  retired  on  account  of  ill-health,  resided  in  Cincin- 
nati, and,  though  not  a  Eeformer,  was  so  impressed  with  the 
proceedings  of  the  General  Conference  of  1828  that  he  openly 
expressed  his  dissent  to  the  report  of  that  body  on  Reform.  The 
brethren  held  their  services  in  a  public  hall  and  invited  Bishop 
to  preach  for  them.  This  he  did,  taking  an  oversight  of  them; 
and  met  one  of  the  classes  a  few  times  in  the  absence  of  the 
leader.  By  his  Conference  brethren  he  was  esteemed  a  holy 
man,  while  his  abilities  were  above  mediocre.  At  the  Ohio 
Annual  Conference  he  was  charged  with  preaching  for  the  Re- 
formers and  leading  a  class;  and  while,  after  much  discussion, 
his  character  passed,  a  resolution  was  also  passed  admonishing 
him  that  he  must  no  more  preach  for  or  assist  the  Eeformers. 
Such  an  arbitrary  interference  with  his  rights  as  a  minister  he 
could  not  allow,  and,  in  a  dignified  letter,  he  withdrew  from  the 
Church  of  his  choice  and  early  labors  with  the  statement,  in  part, 

1  Williams's  "  History,"  pp.  241-2G0,  for  full  text  of  these  proceedings. 


CASE  OF  BEV.  TRUMAN  BISHOP 


201 


"  Contrary  to  my  former  calculation  I  now  retire  from  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  (which  is  near 
and  dear  to  me),  for  the  reason  that  the  command  of  the  confer- 
ence and  the  command  of  Jesus  Christ  given  to  me  stand  in  direct 
opposition  to  each  other."  He  was  then  chosen  pastor,  but  the 
mental  suffering  and  the  treatment  he  had  received,  as  his  phy- 
sicians testified  to  the  best  of  their  belief,  induced  a  lingering 
illness,  which  ended  fatally,  January  12,  1829.  As  the  new 
church  on  Sixth  Street  was  not  completed,  his  funeral  took  place 
in  the  First  Presbyterian  church,  the  pastor  officiating.  His 
decease  was  universally  lamented,  and  emphasized  the  cause  of 
Reform  in  the  city.^  The  brethren  subsequently  invited  Eev. 
Asa  Shinn,  who  had  now  recovered  from  his  mental  fag  and 
aberration,  to  take  charge  of  them.  He  accepted  the  invitation 
and  entered  anew  upon  a  ministry  of  great  power  in  that  city. 
Shortly  after,  he  formally  withdrew  from  the  Pittsburgh  Confer- 
ence and  fully  identified  himself  with  the  Reformers.  He  once 
more  resumed  his  powerful  pen,  and  various  articles  in  their 
periodicals  were  in  proof  of  his  complete  recovery.  He  was  now 
forty-eight  years  of  age,  and  for  a  number  of  years  thereafter 
bent  all  his  energies  in  furtherance  of  Reform  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.^ 

Earlier  in  this  History  an  account  was  given  of  the  proceedings 
against  Reformers  in  North  Carolina.  Eight  lay-members  had 
been  expelled  on  account  of  their  opinions  concerning  church 
polity.  Twelve  ministers  had  been  cast  out,  seven  of  them  after 
a  mock  trial,  and  five  by  the  more  summary  process  of  being 
scratched  off  the  records.  Roanoke  and  Albemarle  were  the 
centres  of  agitation,  and  the  documentary  evidence  preserved 
in  Paris's  "History"  is  among  the  most  valuable  of  the  Reform 
archives.  Under  the  leadership  of  such  men  as  Dr.  Bellamy,  Ivy 
Harris,  W.  W.  Hill,  Colonel  S.  Whitaker,  James  Hunter,  Case- 
well  Drake,  Rev.  R.  Davison,  William  Price,  and  Lewellyn  Jones, 
strong  societies  were  organized,  and  the  foundations  laid  for  a 
Conference  unexcelled  for  fidelity  to  principle  and  zeal  in  the 
cause  of  the  Redeemer.  The  brethren  were  diligent  in  dissemi- 
nating their  purposes,  and,  having  no  periodical  of  their  own, 
made  use  of  the  Tarhorough  Free  Press,  and  by  this  means  reached 

1  "The  Remains  of  the  late  Rev.  Truman  Bishop,"  etc.,  by  John  Houghton. 
Cincinnati.    1829.   8vo.    80  pp. 

2  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  and  Bassett's  "  History,"  furnish  many  other  val- 
uable details  for  the  West. 


202 


BISTORT  OF  METHOBIST  BEFORM 


the  eye  of  the  jNIethodist  community.  But  the  charges  and  speci- 
fications against  Reformers  being  everywhere  largely  identical 
and  the  proceedings  summary,  space  cannot  be  given  to  the  itera- 
tion for  every  section  of  the  country  involved,  and  for  not  a  few 
localities  nothing  but  bare  mention  can  be  made  in  these  pages. 
Equally  worthy,  the  salient  instances  must  answer  for  illustration. 

In  Virginia,  Lynchburg  and  Northumberland  County  were 
other  fields  of  expulsion  and  secession.  The  amity  proclaimed 
by  the  General  Conference  was  understood  practically  as  applying 
to  Baltimore  only,  and  that  for  strategic  reasons  of  Dr.  Bond. 
Elsewhere,  as  found,  no  attention  was  paid  to  it,  and  mayhap 
none  was  intended.  Certainly  the  fell  purpose  to  "  expel  Reform 
out  of  the  Church  "  was  exhibited  wherever  the  sentiment  had 
secured  a  menacing  foothold.  A  meeting  of  Reformers  was  held 
in  Lynchburg,  September  18,  1828,  at  which  resolutions  of  sym- 
pathy and  approval  were  passed  over  the  course  of  Reformers  in 
Baltimore,  and  delegates  appointed  to  attend  the  November  Con- 
vention. It  was  attended  by  a  large  number  of  the  most  respect- 
able citizens,  being  a  public  one,  and  was  conducted  in  an  orderly 
and  dignified  manner,  as  became  the  object.  Speedily  thereafter 
the  preacher  in  charge,  Rev.  W.  A.  Smith,  cited  to  trial  two  local 
preachers  and  nine  laymen  for  "endeavoring  to  sow  dissensions 
in  our  church  by  inveighing  against  the  discipline."  The  laymen 
were  official  members,  and,  after  the  same  mockery  of  trial  as 
others  had  experienced  elsewhere,  they  were  expelled.  Their 
appeal  to  the  Quarterly  Conference  only  led  to  a  confirmation  of 
the  action  of  the  committee.  Soon  thereafter  about  fifty  with- 
drew from  the  Church.  The  women,  to  the  number  of  thirty- 
seven,  imitating  their  sisters  in  Baltimore,  addressed  a  letter  to 
the  pastor,  setting  forth  their  reasons,  and  withdrew  in  a  body. 
Among  the  laymen  expelled  were  the  Chairman,  Christopher 
Winfree,  and  the  Secretary,  John  Victor,  of  the  meeting  referred 
to  as  "inflammatory."  Revs.  William  J.  Holcombe  and  John 
Percival  were  the  expelled  local  preachers.  Subsequently  others 
withdrew,  until  the  number  associated  under  an  instrument  pre- 
pared was  sixty-two.  A  subscription  of  $2000  was  at  once 
secured  to  build  a  house  of  worship,  if  the  Convention  should 
determine  to  organize  an  independent  Church.  The  Christian 
denominations  of  the  city  opened  their  houses,  and  the  Reformers 
had  regular  Sabbath  service,  with  their  local  preachers  officiating, 
as  well  as  social  means  of  grace.  In  this,  as  in  almost  every 
other  instance,  the  Reformers  constituted  the  cream  of  the  Metho- 


EXPULSIONS  :  EEFOBM  ORGANIZATIONS  203 


dist  Church,  an  allegation  not  disputed  even  by  their  own  histo- 
rians. The  expulsions  in  Northumberland  County  did  not  take 
place  until  after  the  Reformers'  Convention  of  November,  1828, 
but  considered  in  this  connection  by  association.  Shortly  after  the 
Convention  Rev.  Benedict  Burgess,  a  worthy  and  acceptable  local 
minister  of  many  years'  standing,  who  had  attended  it,  with 
Thomas  Berry,  John  Lansdale,  and  others,  were  catechised  by 
the  preacher  in  charge.  Rev.  T.  C.  Thornton,  and,  after  public 
service,  the  people  were  detained,  and  he  announced  that  the 
"following  names  are  to  be  considered  as  having  withdrawn  from 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  " ;  and  then  read  out  eight  or  ten 
names.  Whereupon,  subsequently,  twenty-one  united  under  the 
Conventional  Articles. 

In  Tennessee  the  Presiding  Elder,  Gwynn,  who  had  expelled 
Reformers,  and  whose  cases  on  appeal  were  favorably  acted  on 
by  the  Annual  Conference,  after  the  General  Conference  of  1828, 
in  August,  notified  the  Methodists  that  the  Conference  had  deter- 
mined to  extirpate  Reform,  and  if,  after  the  ensuing  quarterly 
conference,  Reformers  in  his  district  did  not  withdraw  from  the 
Union  Society,  surrender  their  support  of  the  Mutual  Bights,  and 
submit  implicitly  to  church  authority,  they  would  no  longer  be 
considered  members.  Under  this  menace,  fourteen  members 
signed  a  paper  requesting  the  preacher  in  charge  to  give  them 
letters  of  dismissal.  The  request  was  denied,  whereupon,  August 
30,  about  sixty  members  united  and  formed  a  union  with  the 
"Reformed  Methodist  Society,"  which  had  been  previously  or- 
ganized in  New  York,  as  found,  and  of  which  this  was  a  local 
Tennessee  branch.  The  union  was  formed  at  Union  Camp-ground, 
near  Unionville,  Bedford  County,  and  delegates  were  appointed 
to  the  ensuing  Baltimore  Convention.  The  Birch  Grove  brethren 
who  sign  the  article  giving  these  facts  in  the  Mutual  Rights  for 
October  6,  1828,  are  William  P.  Smith,  Richard  Warner,  and 
W.  W.  Elliott.  In  this  case,  as  in  others  recited,  the  writer  de- 
plores the  fact  that  other  names  are  not  now  found  among  accessi- 
ble records  as  worthy  of  embalmment  in  the  good  and  heroic  cause. 

The  first  number  of  the  Mutual  Bights  and  Christian  Intelli- 
gencer was  issued  as  the  successor  to  the  Mutual  Bights,  September 
6,  1828,  so  that  there  was  an  intermission  of  but  two  months  in 
the  publications.  It  was  a  bi-monthly  folio  sheet  of  eight  pages, 
under  the  editorship  of  Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  at  No.  19  South 
Calvert  Street,  price  one  dollar.  It  preserved  the  reputation  of 
its  predecessors  in  Reform  for  high  literary  character  and  me- 


204 


HISTOBY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


chanical  finish.  All  the  prominent  writers  reappear  under  their 
old  incognitos,  and  its  early  numbers  are  filled  with  discussions 
and  propositions  as  to  the  Convention  and  its  probable  outcome. 
There  are  also  numerous  communications  giving  information  of 
expulsions  elsewhere  than  already  named,  in  the  North  as  well, 
manifesting  the  purpose  of  the  Episcopal  authorities  to  "  expel 
Reform  out  of  the  Church."  There  are  notices  of  camp-meet- 
ings, held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Reformers,  which  were  very 
successful  in  conversions,  one  at  Hibernia  woods,  adjoining  the 
homestead  of  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  in  Queen  Anne's  County,  Md., 
and  of  which  he  sent  a  description  to  Dr.  Bangs,  editor  of  the 
Christian  Advocate,  with  a  request  to  publish,  which,  of  course, 
was  not  done.  There  were  sixty  white  conversions  and  additions, 
a  number  of  others  having  left  the  ground  before  the  invitation 
was  given.  The  notice  to  the  Advocate  was  sent  in  grim  humor 
and  solemn  travesty  of  the  accusation  against  Reformers  so  freely 
bandied  that  they  were  "  backsliders  "  and  "  evil  spirits  "  whom 
God  had  forsaken  to  their  erring  ways.  Rev.  Eli  Henkle  held 
what  he  called  a  "Local  Preachers'  Camp,"  in  Baltimore  County, 
Md.,  which  was  very  successful.  He  and  his  brothers,  Saul  and 
Moses  M.,  were  gifted  and  active  preachers  in  Reform  in  these 
days.  The  editor  of  the  Star  of  Bethlehem,  published  at  Taun- 
ton, Mass.,  in  the  interest  of  the  "Reformed  Methodists,"  noticed 
fully  in  first  volume,  made  inquiry  through  it  as  to  the  plans 
and  objects  of  the  Baltimore  Convention.  It  may  be  observed  in 
passing  that  a  considerable  numerical  accession  was  made  to  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  from  1830  to  1832  from  these  breth- 
ren, a  whole  conference,  known  as  the  Rochester,  in  western  New 
York,  uniting  their  fortunes  with  the  new  organization,  though, 
as  is  the  universal  result  of  all  attempted  Unions,  not  a  few  were 
recalcitrant  and  sloughed  off  into  other  churches. 

It  would  require  a  volume  if  the  local  history  of  all  the  Union 
Societies  and  the  expulsions  and  withdrawals  were  recorded  in 
this  work,  extending  as  they  did  from  Burlington,  Vt.,  to  New 
Orleans,  La.,  and  west  to  the  fringe  of  settled  territory.  Salient 
instances,  deemed  at  the  time  worthy  of  special  mention,  have 
been  rehearsed  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  the  fact  that  in  every 
instance  expulsion  preceded  withdrawal  in  refutation  of  the 
unhistorical  averment  that  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  was 
a  "secession."  One  instance,  that  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  is  re- 
served by  reason  of  its  striking  character  and  illustrative  force, 
occurring  after  the  November  Convention,  to  which  a  future 
new  chapter  shall  be  devoted. 


CHAPTER  XII 


Vindicatory  comments  on  M'Tyeire'a  reflections  upon  Bishops  George  and  Rob- 
erts—Second Convention  of  Reformers,  November  12-22, 1828;  roster  of  mem- 
bers in  full,  but  fifteen  absentees  out  of  one  hundred  and  ten;  Hon.  P.  B. 
Hopper  elected  President,  but  declines ;  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen  then  chosen  — 
Seventeen  Articles  of  Association  agreed  to;  full  text  with  comments,  the 
fifteenth  and  seventeenth  specially  noted  as  bearing  upon  Slavery  and  the 
Local  preachers;  organizing  agents  appointed  to  travel  in  the  two  years  inter- 
vening up  to  November,  1830,  when  it  was  resolved  to  hold  a  third  General 
Convention  to  adopt  a  Constitution  and  Discipline  for  the  new  Church ;  a  com- 
mittee appointed  to  prepare:  Williams,  Jennings,  McCaine,  Harrod,  and  Davis 
—  Proposal  to  have  a  General  President  rejected;  action  since  on  the  subject. 

In  the  new  Mutual  Rights  for  September  20,  1828,  appears  the 
notice,  "The  Eev.  Enoch  George,  one  of  the  Bishops  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  died  on  the  morning  of  the  23d 
ultimo,  at  Staunton,  Va.,  after  a  most  distressing  and  painful 
illness  of  about  twelve  days."  Bishop  M'Tyeire,  in  his  "  History 
of  Methodism,"  p.  573,  says  of  the  contentions  of  1820-28, 
"Bishop  George  in  judicial  weakness,  and  Bishop  Eoberts  by 
amiable  irresolution,  in  the  primary  movement  let  the  ship  drive." 
It  is  M'Kendree  and  Soule  who  are  complimented  by  him  for  the 
"resolute  means  they  used  to  save  the  constitution."  It  was  his 
point  of  view,  but  it  does  grave  injustice  to  George  and  Roberts. 
The  evidence  is  abundant  that  both  these  men,  while  loyal  to 
their  high  office,  made  earnest  endeavor  to  hold  an  even  balance 
in  the  controversy,  and  the  only  judicial  weakness  and  amiable 
irresolution  they  exhibited  was  in  their  unsuccessful  purpose  to 
hold  in  check  the  overbearing  and  arrogant  attitude  of  their  senior 
colleagues.  Their  official  rulings,  whenever  the  Reformers  came 
under  them,  were  generally  honest  and  just,  the  latter  contending 
that  the  Discipline  did  not  warrant  the  trial  of  members  by  any 
court  of  appeal  composed  of  the  same  persons  who  had  given 
verdict  against  them  in  the  primary  instance,  —  a  principle  which 
was  constantly  violated  in  the  trials  and  expulsions  of  Reformers, 
as  has  been  seen;  and  he  assigned  Lambdin  to  the  Pittsburgh 
church,  with  the  pledge  from  him  that  he  would  not  take  a  partisan 
position  between  the  Reformers  and  anti-reformers,  a  pledge  he 
broke  so  soon  as  he  was  in  charge.    Well  had  it  been  for  the 

205 


206 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


subsequent  peace  and  organic  unity  of  American  Methodism  if 
the  counsels  and  moderation  of  sucli  bishops  had  prevailed,  and 
it  is  that  their  memories  may  be  rescued  from  the  odium  thus 
cast  upon  them  that  this  space  is  surrendered  to  them. 

The  advertised  call  for  the  Convention  of  November,  1828,  is 
in  proof  how  circumspectly  and  slowly  the  Reformers  acted  in 
the  grave  emergency,  and  how  little  ground  there  is  for  the  slur 
upon  their  memories  that  they  were  ambitious  and  anxious  to 
make  opportunity  for  secession  and  the  organization  of  an  inde- 
pendent Church,  than  which  nothing  can  be  farther  from  the 
truth.  The  call  says :  "  The  committee  are  therefore  of  opinion 
that  it  is  proper  and  necessary  that  a  general  convention  should 
be  assembled  to  deliberate  upon  the  course  which  is  now  to  be 
pursued  by  the  friends  of  reform,  .  .  .  w^hether  the  contemplated 
convention  shall  determine  to  organize  for  an  independent  exist- 
ence, to  continue  their  struggle  against  these  lofty  pretensions, 
or  peaceably  to  surrender  their  rights  and  give  up  all  for  lost; 
.  .  .  the  committee  wish  it  understood,  however,  that  they  in  no 
case  advise  a  separation  from  the  Church,  until  the  sentiments  of 
the  reformers  generally  can  be  known,  in  the  contemplated  con- 
vention." 

This,  the  second  Convention  of  Methodist  Reformers,  was  held 
at  St.  John's  church.  Liberty  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.,  November 
12  to  22  inclusive,  1828.^  It  was  opened  with  religious  ser- 
vices and  a  sermon  by  Eev.  Nicholas  Snethen,  after  which  Rev. 
Dr.  Jennings  was  elected  Chairman  pro  tern.,  and  W.  S.  Stockton 
and  Everard  Hall,  Esq.,  Secretaries.  The  credentials  of  mem- 
bers having  been  examined,  the  following  were  found  to  have 
been  elected ;  — 

Vermont 
Rev.  Justis  Byington 

New  York 

Rev.  Daniel  Bromley  Mr.  Josiah  Wilcox 

1  As  to  the  sources  of  information  anent  this  Convention  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  original  draft  of  the  proceedings,  consisting  of  forty-four  cap  pages  with 
paper  cover,  is  now  before  the  writer  held  in  trust  by  the  Book  Concern  of  Balti- 
more, and  attested  by  Nicholas  Snethen  and  the  secretaries.  By  order  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1854,  Rev.  W.  H.  Wills  was  employed  to  make  a  transcript 
of  the  proceedings,  as  well  as  of  the  Convention  of  1830  and  the  General  Confer- 
ences down  to  1854  inclusive,  which  was  faithfully  performed,  and  this  volume  is 
also  before  the  writer,  held  in  trust  in  the  same  manner.  The  Mutual  Rights 
also  contains  a  full  copy  of  the  proceedings.  The  Articles  of  Association  were 
ordered  published  by  the  Convention  with  a  roster  of  the  members,  and  a  copy  is 
before  the  writer. 


REFORM  CONVENTION  OF  NOVEMBER,  1828  207 


Pennsylvania 

Eev.  Dr.  Thomas  Dunn  Rev.  Charles  Avery 

Mr.  John  Mecasky  Rev.  Joseph  Smallman 

Mr.  William  S.  Stockton  Mr.  Charles  Widney 

Rev.  Isaac  James  i  Rev.  Jeremiah  Browning 

Mr.  L.  Tookeri 


Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  K.  Jennings 

Rev.  Alexander  McCaine 

Rev.  John  S.  Reese 

Rev.  James  R.  Williams 

Mr.  John  J.  Harrod 

Mr.  John  Chappell 

Mr.  Ephraim  Smith 

Mr.  John  Kennard 

Mr.  Wesley  Starr 

Mr.  Henry  Willis 

Mr.  Samuel  C.  Owings 

Mr.  Henry  Yeater 

Mr.  Richard  Ridgley 

Mr.  John  Rose 

WilUam  Copper,  Esq. 

Rev.  Daniel  Chambers 

Mr.  Samuel  Willis 

Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen 

Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer 

Mr.  Elias  Crutchley 

Mr.  Joshua  Smith 

Mr.  Edmund  Rockhold  i 


Mr.  Samuel  Geyer  i 
Mr.  Henry  C.  Dunbar 
Mr.  Hugh  M'Mechen 
Mr.  Beale  C.  Stinchcomb 
Rev.  Benj.  Richardson 
Rev.  Isaac  Webster 
Mr.  Joseph  Parker 
Mr.  Amon  Richards  i 
Mr.  William  Bradford 
Mr.  Resa  Norris 
Capt.  J ohn  Constable  J- 
Mr.  John  Turner 
Rev.  S.  Linthicum 
Thomas  C.  Keaton  ^ 
Mr.  Peregrine  Mercer 
Mr.  John  Greenfield 
Rev.  Eli  Henkle 
Hon.  Philemon  B.  Hopper 
Rev.  Thomas  Reed 
Rev.  William  T.  Ringgold 
Thomas  C.  Browne,  Esq. 
Dr.  Thomas  W.  Hopper 


Delaware 
Mr.  A.  S.  Naudain 


District  op  Columbia 


Mr.  Gideon  Davis 
Mr.  John  Eliason 
Mr.  William  King 
Mr.  Joel  Brown 
Mr.  Wm.  C.  Lipscomb 


Mr.  James  C.  Dunn 
Col.  William  Doughty 
Mr.  Richard  Holdsworth 
Mr.  Thomas  Jacobs 
Rev.  William  Lamphier^ 


Rev.  Dr.  John  French 
Mr.  Tildsley  Graham 
Rev.  John  M.  Willis 


Virginia 


Rev.  John  Percival 

Mr.  John  Victor 

Rev.  Dr.  John  B.  Tilden 


1  These  were  not  present. 


208  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Virginia  (continued) 

Mr.  James  Taylor  Mr.  John  S.  Denson  i 

Rev.  Thomas  Blunt  Mr.  George  W.  F.  Dashield 

Everard  Ilall,  Esq.  Rev.  Ed.  Drumgoole,  Jr. 

Mr.  John  J.  Burroughs  Rev.  Thomas  Moore 

Rev.  William  H.  Coman  Rev.  Benedict  Burgess 

Dr.  Robert  Musgrave  i  Mr.  William  W.  Ball 
Rev.  Dr.  C.  Finney 

North  Carolina 


Rev.  Dr.  Josiah  R.  Horn 
Rev.  W.  W.  Hill 
Speir  Whitaker,  Esq. 


Rev.  James  Towler 
Rev.  William  Young 
Mr.  Ezekiel  Hall 


Rev.  Dr.  Wm.  B.  Elgin 
Rev.  Thomas  Potts  i 


Ohio 


Tennessee 


Alabama 


Rev.  Armstrong  J.  Blackburn 
Rev.  Payton  Bibb  ^ 


Dr.  John  F.  Bellamy 
Rev.  Joseph  B.  Hintoni 
Rev.  Israel  B.  Hutchins 


Rev.  William  H.  Collins 
Rev.  William  B.  Evans 
Rev.  Jacob  Myers 

Col.  Richard  Warner  i 


Dr.  Meeki 


Names  of  Delegates  from  the  Methodist  Society  op  New  York 
Rev.  Dr.  James  Covell  Rev.  A.  G.  Brewer 


From  New  Jersey 

Rev.  Thomas  Davis  Rev.  Daniel  Ireland 

Rev.  Samuel  Budd  Rev.  Taber  Chadwick  i 

Rev.  A.  Jump  and  Rev.  T.  Melvin  in  attendance  from  Caroline  County,  Md. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  out  of  110  elected,  there  were  but  15 
absentees,  which,  considering  both  the  expense  and  the  difficulty 
of  travel  in  that  day,  is  an  extraordinary  exhibit.  It  will  also 
be  seen  that,  though  over  one-third  were  from  Maryland,  the 
number  was  not  out  of  proportion  to  the  Union  Societies  and  the 
general  influence  Eeform  exerted  in  this  State.  It  will  also  be 
seen  that  a  number  of  lawyers,  designated  at  that  time  by  the 
affix  of  Esq.,  were  members,  while  the  laymen  as  a  class  were  of 
the  best  in  the  membership  of  the  old  Church,  and  the  ministers, 
though  largely  local,  were  conspicuous  for  ability  and  influence 

1  These  were  not  present. 


PREAMBLE  AND  ASSOCIATED  ARTICLES  209 


in  their  respective  neighborhoods.  Two  sessions  were  lield,  from 
nine  until  one,  and  from  three  until  five,  and  toward  the  close 
night  sessions  also,  though  earlier,  preaching  and  prayer  service 
was  held  at  night,  and  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer  appointed  for 
the  second  Thursday  of  the  Convention.  Thus  these  godly  men 
strove  to  keep  in  Divine  touch  while  discharging  their  weighty 
responsibility.  At  the  afternoon  session  of  November  13,  an 
election  of  President  by'  ballot  was  ordered,  and  on  counting 
the  votes  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  of  Maryland  was  found  to  have  a 
plurality.  "He  arose  and  expressed  his  gratitude  for  the  honor 
intended  him,  but  begged  leave,  for  various  reasons,  to  decline; 
his  resignation  was  accepted."  On  a  second  trial  Rev.  Nicholas 
Snethen  was  duly  elected.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that,  as  in  the 
first,  so  in  the  second  Convention,  a  layman  was  honored,  prece- 
dents which  were  many  years  later  revived  and  followed.  The 
sessions  for  about  one-half  of  the  time  were  held  with  closed 
doors,  the  fear  of  obtrusion  deterring  what  was  a  clear  sentiment 
of  the  body,  which  finally  obtained  on  motion  of  J.  J.  Harrod. 

A  report  on  the  action  of  the  General  Conference  of  1828  was 
submitted  and  approved  from  Gideon  Davis,  an  able  document, 
to  be  found  in  full  in  the  Mutual  Bights  of  December  5.  The 
committee  to  submit  plans  for  Church  organization  reported,  and 
manuscripts  were  submitted  from  Gideon  Davis,  James  K.  Wil- 
liams, S.  K.  Jennings,  and  Alexander  McCaine,  which  were  read; 
and  finally  the  Convention  resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  the 
whole  on  all  the  papers  offered.  As  the  outcome  of  their  delib- 
erations, seventeen  Articles  of  Association  were  agreed  to,  and 
formally  adopted,  with  a  Preamble,  which  is  here  given  in  full. 
It  was  from  the  facile  pen  of  Dr.  Jennings. 

WhereaSj  the  friends  of  a  fair  and  equal  representation  in  the 
Government  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  when  they  have 
insisted  on  the  necessity  of  a  modification  in  the  polity  of  the 
Church,  which  should  recognize  this  fundamental  principle,  the 
only  safeguard  to  the  liberties  of  the  people;  and  when  they  have 
submitted  respectful  petitions  and  memorials  to  the  General  Con- 
ference, praying  for  the  admission  of  the  principle,  have  been 
met  in  a  manner  which  has  encouraged  and  prepared  the  friends 
of  absolute  power,  to  request  and  urge  them  to  withdraw  from 
the  fellowship  of  the  Church,  and  to  threaten  them  with  excom- 
munication, if  they  should  refuse  to  comply ;  —  And  ivhereas, 
many  of  our  highly  esteemed  and  useful  members  in  the  Church, 

VOL.  11  —  P 


210 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


by  an  unjustifiable  violence,  have  been  excluded  from  the  fellow- 
ship of  their  brethren,  and  have  been  thereby  compelled  for  the 
time  being,  to  form  themselves  into  religious  fraternities,  for 
purposes  of  Christian  fellowship ;  —  And  lohereas,  all  the  Metho- 
dists of  the  United  States,  and  perhaps  of  the  world,  have  been 
united  together  in  their  visible  fellowship,  under  the  general  rules 
of  Mr.  Wesley,  which  express  the  only  condition  and  legitimate 
test  of  membership ;  —  And  whereas,  in  violation  of  good  faith 
and  brotherly  love,  by  an  exercise  of  power,  not  authorized  by 
the  word  of  God,  other  tests  have  been  set  up  for  the  support  of 
that  violence,  by  which,  many  valuable  brethren  have  been  unlaw- 
fully excluded,  as  aforesaid ;  —  And  ivhereas,  these  measures  have 
been  so  conducted,  that  we  are  justified  in  believing  it  to  have 
been  the  intention  of  the  General  Conference  and  the  anti- 
Eeformers  under  their  influence,  to  punish  all  the  avowed  friends 
of  representation,  and  intimidate  any  who  may  feel  inclined 
to  favor  that  principle;  —  And  whereas,  the  late  decisions  of  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  Annual  Conferences,  as  also  the  ultimate 
proceedings  and  report  of  the  General  Conference,  in  relation  to 
this  subject,  have  placed  every  friend  of  representation  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in  such  a  situation  tliat  their 
opponents  have  it  completely  in  their  power  to  compel'  them  to 
renounce  their  principles,  or  be  excluded  from  the  fellowship  of 
their  brethren ;  —  And  ivhereas,  Ministers  favorable  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  representation,  in  sundry  places,  are  no  longer  admitted 
to  ordination,  or  to  occupy  the  pulpits  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  to  the  great  grievance  of  many ;  —  And  whereas,  the 
opposers  of  representation  appear  to  show  no  concern  for  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  those  whom  they  have  excluded  as  aforesaid, 
or  of  those  who  on  account  of  such  exclusions,  have  considered 
themselves  called  on  to  withdraw  out  of  the  reach  of  their  violent 
measures,  but  hold  them  up  to  public  view,  as  evil-minded  per- 
sons, and  prophesy  evil  things  concerning  them,  notwithstanding 
the  fact,  that  those  who  have  had  the  best  means  of  knowing 
the  injured  brethren,  have  unabated  confidence  in  their  moral 
and  religious  integrity,  and  in  common  with  all  the  admirers  of 
steady  adherence  to  principle,  do  actually  applaud  their  firmness, 
in  holding  fast  the  principle  of  representation,  although  by  so 
doing  they  have  been  subjected  to  such  heavy  pains  and  penalties; 
—  And  whereas,  the  report  of  the  General  Conference,  above 
referred  to,  not  only  has  sanctioned  their  unjust  proceedings, 
but  in  effect  asserted  a  divine  right  to  continue  to  legislate  and 


'^ASSOCIATED  METHODIST  CHURCHES  "  211 

administer  the  government  of  the  Church  in  this  oppressive 
manner :  —  Therefore,  we,  the  delegates  of  the  friends  of  a  rei- 
RESENTATivE  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  elected  and  appointed  by  them  to  meet  in  Convention  in 
the  city  of  Baltimore,  in  November,  1828,  with  a  due  regard  to 
the  fundamental  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  as  recog- 
nized by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  the  several 
States  in  the  Union,  in  common  with  other  Protestant  churches, 
do  in  behalf  of  ourselves,  our  constituents  and  our  posterity,  in 
the  fear  of  God,  solemnly  protest  against  the  right  of  the  General 
Conference  to  assume  such  power,  or  to  institute  or  sustain  any 
such  violent  proceedings  to  which  it  necessarily  leads ;  and  we 
do  hereby  acknowledge  and  sustain  the  right  of  those  brethren 
who  have  been  excluded,  and  of  those  who  have  on  their  account 
withdrawn  as  aforesaid,  to  unite  and  form  themselves  into  com- 
munities ;  and  we  do  this  the  more  willingly,  because  in  so  doing, 
they  will  now  of  necessity  meet  the  demand  which  has  been  so 
often  made  by  their  opponents,  to  exhibit  a  plan  explanatory  of 
the  changes  which  they  desire,  and  what  they  intended  to  avoid 
till  driven  to  it  by  necessity,  to  demonstrate  by  its  practical 
operations,  the  expedience  of  a  representative  Methodist 
Church  Government,  and  do  therefore  adopt  the  following  Ar- 
ticles of  Association  for  the  government  of  such  Societies  as 
shall  agree  thereto,  under  the  appellation  of  "  Associated  Meth- 
odist Churches." 

The  seventeen  Articles  of  Association  are  thus  summarized  by 
Bassett's  "History:"  — 

Article  1st.  Adopts  the  Articles  of  Religion,  General  Eules, 
Means  of  Grace,  Moral  Discipline,  and  Kites  and  Ceremonies  in 
the  main  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 

Article  2d.  Provides  that  each  church  shall  have  sole  power  to 
admit  serious  persons  into  full  membership,  and  regulate  its 
temporal  concerns. 

Article  M.  Declares  the  right  of  property  as  vested  in  the 
respective  societies,  who  are  to  elect  trustees. 

Article  Uh.  Provides  for  the  fair  trial  of  accused  persons,  and 
the  right  of  appeal. 

Article  5th.  Provides  for  constituting  a  Quarterly  Conference 
in  every  circuit  and  station,  and  defines  its  prerogatives  and 
duties. 

Article  6th.  Provides  for  the  organization  of  one  or  more  Annual 


212 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFORM 


Conferences  in  each  state,  composed  of  an  equal  number  of  min- 
isters and  lay-delegates. 

Article  7th.  Provides  that  each  Annual  Conference  elect  its 
President  and  Secretary. 

Article  Sth.  Provides  that  each  Annual  Conference  adopt  its 
own  mode  of  stationing  the  preachers. 

Article  0th.  Defines  the  duties  and  rights  of  the  President. 

Article  10th.  Further  defines  the  powers  of  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences. 

Article  11th.  Contains  regulations  for  its  itinerancy  and  its 
ordinations. 

Article  12th.  Annual  Conferences  to  fix  times  and  places  for 
their  sittings. 

Article  13th.  Travelling  preachers  subject  to  the  appointments 
of  Conference,  and  entitled  to  the  same  allowance  as  provided  in 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Discipline. 

Article  IM.  Defines  the  duties  of  preachers  in  charge. 

Article  15th.  Requires  that  "  Nothing  contained  in  these  Arti- 
cles is  to  be  so  construed  as  to  interfere  with  the  right  of  property 
belonging  to  any  member,  as  recognized  by  the  laws  of  the  state 
within  the  limits  of  which  the  members  may  reside." 

Article  16th.  Provides  for  holding  a  General  Convention  in 
Baltimore  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  November,  1830,  composed  of 
ministers  and  lay-representatives  elected  by  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences. 

Article  11th.  Accords  certain  rights  and  privileges  to  super- 
numerary and  superannuated  preachers  as  to  service  and  com- 
pensation. 

The  fifteenth  article  was  inserted  on  motion  of  Speir  Whitaker, 
Esq.,  of  North  Carolina,  after  amendment.  There  was  no  con- 
cealment of  its  purpose :  the  protection  of  slave  property  in  the 
Southern  states.  The  motives  of  the  author  need  not  be  im- 
pugned. By  him  it  was  intended  as  a  peace  measure  so  far  as 
the  infant  Church  was  concerned.  In  all  the  states  of  the  South 
civil  law  had  placed  the  question  of  manumission  under  restric- 
tions, which  no  ecclesiastical  manifesto  could  change  in  the  least 
degree,  hence  their  introduction  was  seen  to  be  a  strife-enkin- 
dling motion  whenever  obtruded  upon  its  legislative  assemblies. 
Methodism  was,  so  to  speak,  a  Southern  religion.  In  the  mother 
Church  the  vast  preponderance  of  its  membership  was  in  the 
South,  and  of  the  entire  Reform  Convention  all  but  eighteen 
hailed  from  slave  territory.    Viewed  from  the  writer's  distance 


FIFTEENTH  ARTICLE  AND  PROPERTY  RIGHTS  213 


of  time  it  was,  however,  a  futile  measure.  So  far  as  it  might  be 
utilized  as  a  definition  of  property  rights  between  the  citizens  of 
the  several  states,  it  was  a  nullity,  a  harmless  declaration.  It 
was  reenacted  in  a  modified  form  in  1830  as  part  of  Article  7th. 
"But  neither  the  General  Conference  nor  any  Annual  Conference 
shall  assume  power  to  interfere  with  the  constitutional  powers 
of  the  civil  governments,  or  with  the  operation  of  the  civil  laws ; 
yet  nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  so  construed  as  to  authorize 
or  sanction  anything  inconsistent  with  the  morality  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures."  (See  Constitution  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  1830.)  The  qualification  was  an  insistence  of  the  anti- 
slavery  element  in  the  Convention  of  1830,  and  was  accepted  by  the 
Southern  element,  each  side  being  satisfied  with  the  implication 
of  personal  judgment  as  to  the  morality  of  slavery  or  any  other 
question.  In  this  form  it  has  remained  in  the  Constitution  of 
the  Church  to  this  day,  the  Union  Convention  of  1877  allowing 
it  to  stand,  though  not  without  dissent  from  some  of  the  repre- 
sentatives who  remembered  the  object  of  its  original  introduction. 
The  sober  view  obtained,  however,  that  to  strike  out  then  would 
revive  a  controversy  which  had  been  settled  by  the  arbitrament 
of  the  Civil  War,  and  as  an  unnecessary  reflection  upon  its 
original  supporters.  It  was  subsequently  successfully  used  as  a 
safeguard  against  politico-moral  legislation  by  the  Annual  and 
General  Conferences.  It  was  a  futile  measure,  moreover,  as  it 
did  not  accomplish  the  object  of  its  enactment  in  the  almost  con- 
tinuous agitation  of  the  slavery  question,  and  tentative  efforts  to 
repress  the  institution  by  ecclesiastical  action,  ultimating  in  the 
"  suspension  of  official  relations  "  of  all  the  Conferences  in  the 
free  states  with  those  in  the  slave  after  the  General  Conference 
of  1858.  Slavery  ceased  to  be  profitable  in  the  Northern  states 
soon  after  1800,  and  in  proportion  as  it  did  so,  and  the  slave- 
trade  was  declared  piracy  by  act  of  Congress,  thus  ending  the 
commercial  ventures  of  New  England  ships,  ^  the  conscience  of 
the  people  became  more  and  more  sensitive  to  domestic  slavery 
in  the  South ;  and  as  found  in  the  mother  Church,  as  well  as  in 

1  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Convention  to  form  a  Constitution  in  Philadelphia 
in  1787  submitted  this  question  to  two  committees  respectively.  The  first  re- 
ported that  the  slave-trade  should  be  "legalized  perpetually."  Three  of  the 
committee  were  from  the  North  and  two  from  the  South.  The  next  committee 
reported  that  "  the  slave  trade  should  not  be  extended  beyond  1800,"  and  of  the 
eleven,  six  of  the  committee  were  from  the  South.  The  period  was  finally  fixed 
at  1808,  the  prolongation  being  secured  by  votes  of  Northern  members.  See 
M'Tyeire's  "History  of  Methodism,"  p.  380,  foot-note. 


214 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  new,  it  grew  to  such  protesting  proportions  that  everything 
as  to  the  embarrassing  environment  of  civil  laws,  State  and  Con- 
ference boundaries,  which  were  plead  by  the  Southern  brethren, 
was  of  no  avail ;  the  question  culminated  in  a  political  party,  as 
all  moral  questions  in  this  country  must,  to  insure  successful 
legislation,  and  the  issue  was  finally  joined  in  battle  array.  It 
was  a  burden  upon  their  consciences,  and  they  applied  the  pre- 
cept, "  Thou  shalt  in  any  wise  rebuke  thy  neighbor,  and  not  suffer 
sin  upon  him."  Like  the  ^'scarlet  letter"  A,  that  burned  upon 
the  bosom  of  Hawthorne's  Hester  Prynne,  so  this  letter  S  burned 
upon  the  bosom  of  the  Southern  Conferences,  and  they  felt  com- 
plicity in  it,  and  it  must  out.  Thus  much  of  review  of  a  vexed 
question  in  its  initial  act  and  in  anticipation  of  the  after  struggle, 
which  may  be  more  briefly  disposed  of  as  a  dead  issue  in  the 
Church.i 

Article  17th  originated  with  Dr.  Jennings,  and  was  an  expres- 
sion of  his  contention  for  the  local  ministry,  so  near  his  heart. 
Some  other  proceedings  need  mention.  Agents  were  appointed 
for  the  several  states,  as  propagandists  and  organizers,  who  ren- 
dered effective  service  in  the  two  years  up  to  1830.  A  committee 
was  appointed  to  "  prepare  a  Constitution  and  book  of  Discipline, 
and  a  Hymn-book,  to  be  submitted  to  the  convention  to  be  held 
on  the  first  Tuesday  in  November,  1830,  in  the  city  of  Baltimore." 
The  committee  named  was :  James  E.  Williams,  S.  K.  Jennings, 
Alexander  McCaine,  John  J.  Harrod,  and  Gideon  Davis.  "'The 
Methodist  Societies '  organized  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
elsewhere  "  were  extended  a  welcome  on  adopting  the  Articles  of 
Association  with  consent  of  the  Annual  Conference  interested. 
J.  J.  Harrod  offered  the  following:  ^' Ee solved,  that  a  General 
President  be  and  is  hereby  considered  necessary  to  travel  at 

1  In  this  late  day,  1898,  it  will  do  something  to  protect  the  memory  of  such  men 
as  Speir  Whitaker,  Alexander  McCaine,  and  others,  of  the  period  of  1820-30,  as  to 
their  views  of  American  domestic  slavery,  to  cite  from  a  speech  of  the  late  Mr. 
Gladstone,  of  England,  made  in  Parliament  within  this  same  period,  as  to  slavery 
in  the  abstract.  His  father  was  the  owner  of  a  large  plantation  in  Demerara, 
worked  by  his  own  slaves,  whom  his  son  "  believed  was  a  thoughtful,  religious, 
and  good  man,  and  that  his  slaves  were  the  happiest  and  most  contented  of  the 
race."  The  citation  is  from  an  article  eulogistic  of  William  E.  Gladstone  in  the 
New  York  Christian  Advocate  of  May  26, 1898,  and  is  as  follows :  "  As  regards  the 
absolute  lawfulness  of  slavery,  I  acknowledge  it  simply  as  imparting  the  right  of 
one  man  to  the  labor  of  another,  and  I  rest  upon  the  fact  that  the  Scripture  —  the 
paramount  authority  for  such  a  point  —  gives  direction  for  persons  standing  in 
the  relation  of  master  to  slave,  for  their  conduct  in  that  relation;  whereas,  were 
the  matter  absolutely  and  necessarily  sinful,  it  \\ould  not  regulate  the  matter." 


GENERAL  PRESIDENT''  PROPOSAL 


215 


large  through  the  Conferences,  and  that  he  be  vested  with  power 
to  transfer  any  preacher  or  minister  from  one  to  any  other  Con- 
ference when  he  considers  the  interests  of  religion  will  be  pro- 
moted by  the  transfer,  provided  the  minister  or  preacher  consents 
to  the  same."  It  was  lost.  The  Convention  was  unprepared  for 
it,  and  the  Church  has  never  yet  felt  prepared  for  it,  though  there 
has  been  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  as  to  its  expediency.  Of 
one  thing  there  can  be  hardly  a  doubt:  such  an  arrangement, 
under  proper  limitations  as  to  magisterial  powers,  would  have 
been  effective  as  promoting  connectional  solidity  and  uniformity 
of  administration;  but  the  extreme  of  supervision,  the  wheels 
within  wheels  of  the  mother  Church,  so  often  crushing  remorse- 
lessly the  personal  rights  of  ministers  and  the  autonomy  of 
churches,  made  even  the  shadow  a  portent  of  evil  to  these  en- 
franchised brethren.  The  most  that  has  been  secured  was  by 
effort  of  the  writer  in  the  Union  Convention  of  1877,  which  makes 
the  President  of  the  General  Conference  its  connectional  head 
until  his  successor  is  elected,  with  purely  ministerial  powers.  It 
supplied  a  serious  connectional  deficiency.  The  Mutual  Rights 
and  Christian  Intelligencer  was  indorsed  as  the  organ  of  Reformers, 
and  patronage  solicited.  Nicholas  Snethen  was  requested  to 
address  the  Convention  before  adjournment,  and  he  complied. 
After  continued  sessions  through  eleven  days,  "  the  Convention 
adjourned,  sine  die." 


CHAPTER  XIII 


An  Independent  Methodist  Church ;  who  is  responsible?  — Unparalleled  conduct  of 
Reform  ministers  consenting  to  part  with  power ;  these  leaders  named  in  part 
—  The  Property  question  fully  analyzed  and  considered  in  every  view  of  it; 
property  is  empire ;  the  philosophy  of  it,  etc.  — The  Georgetown,  D.  C,  case  of 
Reformers  as  a  type  of  others  considered  in  detail ;  original  facts  —  The  propa- 
gating Agents  and  their  work  everywhere ;  Reform  crippled  for  want  of  preach- 
ers; inchoate  societies  die  out  — Reform  camp-meetings  — Bond  resumes  open 
opposition  to  Reform  in  Baltimore;  the  Itinerant,  with  an  analysis  of  it 
fairly  put  for  its  three  years'  existence —Two  schools  of  Reformers:  the  Mc- 
Caine-Williams  party  and  the  Snethen-Stockton  party,  and  what  they  wished. 

An  Independent  organization  of  Methodists  —  with  whom  does 
the  responsibility  lodge?  Both  parties  were  governed,  it  must 
be  conceded,  by  conscientious  convictions  of  necessity  in  either 
situation.  On  the  part  of  the  Eeformers  nothing  cau  be  more  evi- 
dent. Its  leadership  expelled,  their  friends  and  adherents  could 
not  do  otherwise  than  withdraw  and  stand  by  them.  Wedded 
to  every  feature  of  Methodism  except  its  government  of  Paternal- 
ism and  exclusive  rule  of  the  ministerial  class,  legislative,  judi- 
cial, and  executive,  they  must  continue  to  be  Methodists,  so  that 
provisional  organization  was  a  necessity  of  the  situation,  retain- 
ing all  of  Methodism  save  the  exceptionable  features  of  its  polity. 
It  was  an  excised  branch  of  the  mother  tree.  The  entailed 
Paternalism  of  Wesley's  Deed  of  Declaration,  and  the  same 
principle  foisted  upon  the  American  societies,  must  bear  the 
responsibility  of  this  the  second  division  among  them.  "The 
power  party,"  so-called,  that  is,  the  ministry,  exercised  authority 
as  it  was  "received  from  our  fathers";  their  rights  were  vested. 
That  they  were  self -created  and  self-imposed  was  a  question  into 
which  few  were  disposed  to  look  closely.  Voluntary  surrender 
of  any  part  of  this  authoritative  heritage  was  denied  by  the  whole 
history  of  human  nature  thus  invested.  Surrender  under  duress 
simply  meant  stern  resistance  to  demand.  "  The  institutions  of 
the  Church  as  we  received  them  from  our  fathers  "  made  a  strong 
government.  The  strength  gave  its  efficiency.  The  efficiency 
must  not  be  sacrificed  to  abstract  right  or  demonstrated  expedi- 

216 


A  NEW  METHODISM  ORGANIZED 


217 


ency.  It  had  created  an  ideal  of  its  own;  it  must  not  be  marred, 
as  Bishop  M'Tyeire  puts  it,  by  "constitution-mongers."  As  one 
of  the  class,  Rev.  John  A.  Collins,  said  in  a  subsequent  General 
Conference,  the  innovations  proposed  would  "  run  the  ploughshare 
of  destruction  through  our  entire  system."  It  was  an  honest 
opinion,  shared,  not  by  his  ministerial  brethren  only,  but  by  a 
large  number  of  the  membership  schooled  in  such  views  by  their 
much  loved  pastors.  They  viewed  therefore  with  alarm  the 
assertion  of  a  submerged  laity,  who  pressed  Scripture  and  reason 
and  Protestant  ecclesiasticism  into  the  contention  for  Christian 
rights  in  opposition  to  priestly  rule.  Scripture,  reason,  and  the 
example  of  other  denominations  made  such  headway  in  the  seven 
years  from  1821  to  1828,  in  revolutionizing  sentiment  in  the  mem- 
bership, winning  here  and  there  one  of  "  the  divinely  authorized 
expounders  "  and  maintainers  of  "  moral  discipline  among  those 
over  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  has  made  them  overseers  "  to  liberal 
views,  it  was  evident  that,  unless  arrested,  seven  years  more 
would  reverse  the  pyramid,  now  upon  its  apex,  to  its  natural 
position  of  standing  upon  its  base.  The  Reformers  advanced, 
keeping  within  the  hedge  of  disciplinary  law  in  their  overt  acts. 
It  must  be  arrested,  and  as  they  would  not,  warned  by  the  exam- 
ple of  O'Kelly  and  company,  and  the  "  Reformed  Methodists  "  of 
the  Stillwell  school,  of  1820-25,  secede,  the  one  conceded  right 
of  all  dissentients,  except  the  peaceful  ones,  to  pray,  pay,  and 
obey  within  the  Church,  nothing  remained:  "Reform  must  be 
expelled  out  of  it."  In  their  view  of  it,  it  was  a  necessity. 
Every  organized  form  of  society,  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  has  the 
reserved  right  of  self-preservation.  The  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  of  that  day  exercised  it,  and  it  need  not  be  criticised. 
Self-preservation,  however,  by  excision  must  be  according  to  law. 
Here  the  expelled  Reformers  made  their  exception,  and  impartial 
history  will  yet  sustain  them.  Recall  all  the  instances  and  the 
testimony,  and  the  verdict  must  be :  they  were  thrust  out ! 

Two  vital  considerations  might  as  well  be  disposed  of  in 
this  argumentative  connection.  The  unparalleled  fact  that 
ministers  engaged  in  this  struggle  for  lay-representation  in 
the  Church  were  willing  not  only  to  surrender  power  for 
its  accomplishment,  but  were  bold  to  demand  that  their  peers 
should  do  likewise.  The  contentions  for  the  right  of  appeal 
and  for  an  elective  eldership  were  within  the  ministerial 
class.  It  has  been  discovered  how  nearly  unanimous  they 
were  at  different  periods  in  the  demand  for  either,  until  over- 


218  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


borne  by  episcopal  power.  It  was  the  awakening  these  dis- 
cussions produced  as  to  rights  at  all  existing  in  the  organized 
American  Methodist  Church,  not  inherent  in  the  episcopacy, 
that  led  thoughtful  men  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  author- 
ity, and  the  lay-movement  was  inaugurated  in  public  form 
by  W.  S.  Stockton.  That  any  should  have  been  found  in  the 
ministry  accessory  to  the  views  presented  is  the  exception  of 
history.  That  quite  a  large  number  were  won  over  is  what  might 
have  been  expected  of  intelligent  and  liberty-loving  Americans, 
though  so  few  finally  found  themselves  either  so  situated  in  tem- 
porals, or  heroically  firm,  as  to  withstand  that  power  over  the 
will  which  comes  of  extraneous  control  of  one's  sustenance  in 
the  crucial  hour.  That  the  hundreds  of  the  former  should  have 
dwindled  into  the  few  of  the  latter  only  makes  the  historian's 
duty  the  more  imperative  that  pedestals  shall  be  erected  on  which 
they  shall  be  elevated  for  the  admiration  of  all  lovers  of  fidelity. 
Nicholas  Snethen,  Asa  Shinn,  Alexander  McCaine,  Dennis  B. 
Dorsey,  William  C.  Pool,  Eli  Henkle,  Frederick  Stier,  Thomas  F. 
Norris,  George  Brown,  Truman  Bishop,  Adjet  M'Guire,  Joseph 
Snelling,  W.  W.  Hill,  James  Hunter,  Samuel  L.  Rawleigh,  Avra 
Melvin,  Cornelius  Springer,  Justis  Byington,  William  W^.  Wal- 
lace, Thomas  Dunn,  Zachariah  Ragan,  Elisha  Lott,  of  the  itiner- 
ants and  ex-itinerants  must  be  accorded  places.  Historic  justice 
shall  yet  be  done  them.  Snethen  in  his  sententious  wisdom 
averred :  "  Those  who  have  nobly  contended  for  liberty,  though 
not  always  successful,  have  always  been  the  favorites  of  fame." 
The  list  of  expelled  and  withdrawn  local  ministers  and  preachers 
is  a  long  one,  the  larger  number  in  Maryland,  but  found  also  in 
various  sections,  and  to  them  over-commendation  cannot  be 
awarded. 

After  the  Convention  of  1828,  the  Union  Societies  were  organ- 
ized into  "Associated  Methodist  Churches,"  and  the  Agents, 
travelling  everywhere,  collected  the  dispersed  Reformers,  and 
nuclei  of  churches  were  formed  in  many  places.  Their  urgent 
primary  want  was  preaching  and  the  ordinances.  Not  a  few  of 
them,  in  response  to  the  call  for  such  service,  yielded,  often 
abandoning  promising  and  lucrative  professional  and  other  occu- 
pations, as  doctors,  lawyers,  tradesmen,  and  farmers.  In  the 
provisional  Conferences  organized  prior  to  1830,  the  ministerial 
locality  were  enrolled  as  clerical  members.  They  displayed  great 
activity,  and  often  developed  into  most  acceptable  preachers  and 
pastors.    Like  early  English  and  American  Methodism,  the  new 


RECUSANT  AND  STEEL-TRUE  REFORMERS  219 


Church  was  fostered  and  kept  alive  by  consecrated  lay-preachers 
and  a  devoted  locality.  Their  names  shall  receive  honorable 
mention  in  proper  connections,  and  thus  rescue  their  memories 
from  the  swift  oblivion  coming  to  many  facts  and  persons  of  this 
early  reformation.  Even  the  records  are  perishing.  Speaking 
of  the  volumes  of  the  Wesley  an  Repository  ^  Snethen  said  in  1835 : 
"  These  volumes  have  now  become  scarce,  even  where  they  were 
circulated.  It  is  doubtful  whether  by  the  time  an  impartial  his- 
tory can  be  written  a  whole  set  can  be  found."  In  this  again  he 
exhibited  his  phenomenal  knowledge  of  men  and  things.  Per- 
haps not  half  a  dozen  sets  exist  to-day. 

The  other  consideration  is  the  property  question  according  to 
its  tenure  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  More  than  any- 
thing else,  perhaps,  it  deterred  the  Keformers  from  independent 
organization,  so  long  as  it  was  possible  to  remain  under  the  shelter 
of  the  old  roof-tree.  The  subject  was  discussed  in  the  first 
volume.  It  was  emphasized  by  the  Reformers,  and  was  one  of 
the  "  misrepresentations  "  and  "  slanders  "  with  which  they  were 
charged.  It  goes  for  the  saying,  that  it  is  the  very  sheet-anchor 
of  arbitrary  and  irresponsible  government.  Rome  discovered 
the  secret  hundreds  of  years  ago.  All  property  rights  are  vested 
in  the  clergy  of  that  Church.  Its  only  parallel  in  Protestantism 
is  found  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Its  paternity  in 
Methodism  is  due  to  John  Wesley.^  It  developed  in  him  and  his 
American  successors  in  this  regard  the  mental  hallucination  of 
denying  the  fact.  Snethen  in  contrast  adduces  the  case  of  the 
Apostles  when  the  primitive  Church  had  "  all  things  in  common, " 
who  refused  to  be  the  custodians,  but  insisted  that  seven  of  the 
brethren  of  honest  report  should  have  the  possession  and  the  right 
of  distribution.  He  wrote  of  it :  "  We  have  said  that  Mr.  Wesley 
was  rich  in  Church  property;  and  that  he  knew  and  felt  he  was 
so.  We  say  the  same  of  our  Superintendents;  they,  too,  know 
and  feel  that  they  have  a  hold  on  the  public  property,  in  virtue 
of  the  absolute  prerogatives  of  their  office,  sufficiently  firm  to 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  Wesley,  in  sober  commentation  on  the  appointment  of 
the  deacons  by  the  Apostles,  Acts  vi. :  3,  "  Whom  we  will  set  over  this  business," 
says,  in  contradiction  of  his  own  policy:  "It  would  have  been  happy  for  the 
Church,  had  its  ordinary  ministers  in  every  age  taken  the  same  care  to  act  in  con- 
cert with  the  people  committed  to  their  charge,  which  the  apostles  themselves, 
extraordinary  as  their  office  was,  did  on  this  and  other  occasions."  The  contra- 
diction is  somewhat  relieved  by  the  fact  that  he  never  intended  in  Europe  or 
America  to  organize  a  Church.  His  Methodists  were  mere  societies  "  within  a 
Church.    See  Wesley's  "Notes,"  in  loco. 


220 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


enable  them  to  dispossess  any  preacher  whenever  they  may  think 
proper.  It  is  to  no  purpose  to  say  that  they  cannot  convert  this 
property  to  their  own  private  use.  There  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  they  would  do  so,  if  they  had  the  title  in  fee.  Kings 
are  not  wont  to  use  the  property  of  the  crown  for  their  own 
private  benefit,  or,  in  other  words,  to  impoverish  themselves  as 
kings,  in  order  to  enrich  themselves  as  individuals.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  the  holders  of  absolute  power  will  be  less  ambi- 
tious than  prodigal  or  covetous  monarchs.  The  glory  of  super- 
intendents is  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  property  they  have 
in  their  possession.  Every  house  that  is  built,  and  every  collec- 
tion that  is  made,  adds  to  their  consequence,  by  increasing  their 
influence.  Poor  bishops  of  rich  dioceses  are  not  common;  and 
poor  universal  bishops  are  less  so.  The  travelling  preachers 
also,  while  their  imaginations  are  dazzled  with  the  idea  of  their 
share  in  the  title  of  property  secured  by  deed  to  the  General 
Conference,  feel  rich,  and  look  down  upon  the  poverty  of  local 
preachers;  their  exclusive  right  to  seats  in  the  conferences  is, 
indeed,  so  flattering  to  their  vanity,  as  in  most  instances  to  blind 
them  to  the  actual  state  of  things.  Pew  of  them  can  be  brought 
to  reflect  steadily  upon  the  fact  that  they  are  little  more  than 
trustees  for  the  bishops,  who,  so  soon  as  they  are  elected  and 
inducted  into  office,  are  no  longer  responsible  to  them.  The 
power  or  privilege  of  electing  to  an  absolute  office  for  life  is  the 
most  dangerous  that  can  be  vested  in  an}"  body  of  men.  The 
importance  such  electors  are  prone  to  attach  to  themselves  is 
pleasantly  ridiculed  in  the  story  of  the  cardinal  and  the  pope. 
The  cardinal,  when  he  wanted  a  favor,  reminded  his  holiness  that 
he  had  made  him  pope,  who,  wearied  at  length  with  this  impor- 
tunity, replied,  'then  let  me  be  pope!  '  "  In  this  Snethen  had  a 
sharper  nib  than  usual  on  his  pen ;  but  it  was  the  fact,  after  all, 
more  than  the  trenchant  rhetoric,  that  led  those  who  were  too 
prejudiced  to  be  candid  to  denounce  it  as  false,  and  even  blas- 
phemous. 

It  is  incredible  that  for  long  years  it  was  disputed,  though 
nothing  is  heard  of  it  in  these  days.  As  late  as  1855-56  the 
venerable  W.  S.  Stockton  felt  the  necessity  of  restating  the  prop- 
erty question  philosophically  and  predictively :  "  The  government 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is  based  on  property;  much 
of  it  is  owned,  and  all  of  it  controlled,  by  the  itinerant  ministry, 
whoever  may  constitute  it  for  the  time.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
those  who  would  be  governed  by  choice,  truth,  and  common  con- 


SNETHEN  AND  STOCKTON  ON  CHURCU  PROPEliTY  221 


sent  should  object?  If  a  class  of  men  should  monopolize  all 
knowledge  as  well  as  property,  the  empire  of  the  class  would 
rest  both  on  property  and  mind.  Dominion  itself  is  property. 
The  sovereignty  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  their  prop- 
erty. Dominion  in  itself,  wherever  found,  is  property.  Dominion 
is  property  even  without  land.  But  the  dominion  of  which  we 
are  treating  is  founded  on  real  property  in  lands,  money,  and 
goods,  over  which  the  subjects  of  the  government  have  no  direct 
control,  nor  is  it  intended  that  they  shall  have,  otherwise  than 
in  the  appropriating  of  certain  proceeds  contributed  by  the  people 
themselves.  The  people  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  will 
not  be  allowed  any  proprietary  rights  in  pulpit  patronage,  nor  in 
the  periodical  press,  nor  in  colleges,  chapels,  parsonages,  nor 
votes  in  General  or  Annual  Conferences.  Their  privileges  as 
contributors  to  the  funds  of  all  kinds  will  be  continued,  and  the 
privileges  to  debate  and  vote  on  propositions  of  appropriation  will 
be  added  to  the  privileges  of  giving;  but,  mark  it  well,  the  people 
will  not  be  allowed  to  have  any  part  in  the  dominion  founded 
on  property.  Not  only  a  proportion  or  the  balance  of  property 
in  all  the  particulars  above  stated  will  be  retained  by  the  bishops 
and  elders,  but  it  will  all  be  retained.  Nothing  can  prevent  this 
but  a  revolution ;  that  would  transfer  dominion  from  property  to 
mind.  Mind  would  restore  the  true  proprietary  rights."  He 
crystallized  the  whole  argument  in  this  pregnant  sentence,  "Em- 
pire follows  property,  whether  lodged  in  one,  or  few,  or  many." 
As  a  philosophy,  his  positions  are  incontrovertibly  true;  as  a 
prediction,  fulfilled,  though  forty  years  have  rolled  away  since 
he  made  this  record,  except  that  the  irrepressible  demand  for  lay- 
participation  in  the  government  has  been  reluctantly  conceded  in 
an  emasculated  lay-delegation  in  the  Church,  North,  and  accepted 
as  a  necessity  of  the  situation  in  the  Church,  South.  By  all  the 
courts  of  law,  both  in  England  and  America,  Koman  Catholicity, 
Wesleyan  Paternity,  and  Methodist  Episcopacy,  as  to  proprietary 
rights  exclusively  in  the  clergy,  walk  hand  in  hand,  isolated  from 
every  other  form  of  Christian  ecclesiasticism.^ 

1  Not  content  with  a  steel-ribbed  church  law,  as  to  the  holding  and  entailment 
of  property,  as  early  as  1824-25,  the  Methodists  of  New  York,  prompted  by  the 
secession  of  the  Stillwell  party,  made  application  to  the  legislature  of  the  state 
for  an  Act  of  Incorporation  to  make  still  more  secure  their  realty  holdings,  thus 
exhibiting  a  quasi  trend  for  national  recognition,  such  as  no  other  denomination 
had  ever  asked.  The  application  was  earnestly  opposed  by  the  "  Reformed 
Methodists"  of  that  day,  and  they  excited  such  an  opposition  to  the  scheme, 
as  a  squinting  toward  union  of  Church  and  State,  the  politicians  raised  such  a 


222  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


It  is  admitted  this  question  is  pertinent:  Is  it  the  conten- 
tion that  connectional  religious  denomination  should  have  no 
security  for  the  inviolability  of  property  beyond  the  will  or  whim 
of  the  autonomous  congregation?  The  answer  is  prompt:  It  is 
not.  The  contention  is  that  it  should  not  be  so  vested  as  to 
overawe  contention  for  all  other  rights  of  empire  as  well,  and  this 
is  decisively  the  case  with  Catholic  Rome  and  Parental  Metho- 
dism, and  is  so  in  its  intent.  The  contention  is  that  those  who 
create  property  should  hold  the  proprietary  right  in  it.  Where, 
then,  is  the  security  against  alienation?  In  the  equities  of  the 
common  law  derived  from  the  English  Constitution,  and  by  which 
American  jurisprudence  is  governed  in  all  cases  made  and  pro- 
vided. These  equities,  in  numerous  cases  decided,  are  in  the 
general  principle  that  associational  property  inheres  in  its  title 
in  any  who  retain  fealty  to  its  original  purpose,  and  under  it 
Protestant  denominations  commonly,  and  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church  specially,  have  been  as  secure  in  their  realty  as  a 
true  equity  could  demand.  The  latter  has  had  recreant  church 
stealing"  pastors  and  revolutionary  societies,^  but  it  is  an  open 
question  whether  with  the  security  of  the  common  law  it  has  lost 
more  property  than  the  mother  Church,  despite  its  iron-clad 
deeds  and  power  of  precipitate  ejectment.  In  not  a  few  cases 
that  deed,  because  of  the  empire  it  gives  over  all  other  rights  as 

prejudice  against  it  that  the  measure  failed.  Again,  as  late  as  1840,  the  M.  E. 
Church,  through  its  proper  officials,  made  a  like  attempt  in  Massachusetts  to  se- 
cure State  recognition  of  its  property  rights,  but  it  also  failed  for  like  reasons. 
The  significance  of  such  efforts  cannot  be  disregarded,  inasmuch  as  no  other 
denomination  has  thought  it  desirable  to  subsidize  the  civil  law  in  its  property 
behoof  by  special  enactment. 

1  The  sufficiency  of  the  common  law,  and  the  Discipline  of  the  M.  P.  Church  to 
secure  conferential  and  connectional  rights  against  revolutionary  invasion  re- 
ceived as  late  as  September,  1897,  an  illustration  under  the  administration  of 
President  Sheppard  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  as  detailed  in  his  annual  report 
as  follows :  "  P2arly  in  September  I  was  called  by  Rev.  B.  F.  Saddler,  the  regular 
appointed  pastor  of  the  Mt.  Zion  Circuit,  to  Burnside.  There  I  found  the  quar- 
terly conference  of  the  circuit  and  Rev.  William  Bryenton,  an  unstationed  minis- 
ter of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  in  rebellion  against  the  stationing  authority  of 
the  conference,  refusing  to  surrender  the  pulpits  and  properties  of  the  circuit  to 
the  regular  appointed  pastor.  After  a  careful  hearing  of  the  matter,  and  upon  the 
officials  of  the  circuit  declaring  publicly  that  they  would  not  obey  the  author- 
ity of  the  conference,  I  immediately  took  the  proper  legal  steps  to  secure  the 
properties  to  the  church  and  to  protect  Brother  Saddler  in  the  exercise  of  his 
duties.  The  matter  was  heard  before  the  court  of  Clearfield  County,  and  a  de- 
cision was  handed  down,  fully  establishing  Rev.  Saddler  in  charge  of  the  circuit, 
giving  him  the  use  of  all  properties  and  the  right  to  the  pulpits  of  the  circuit,  thus 
establishing  fully  the  contention  of  the  Discipline,  that  the  conference  has  power 
to  station  its  preachers." 


''COMMON  LAW''  AND  EQUITY  PROTECTION  223 


well,  has  been  evaded,  a  strong  and  wealthy  laity  thus  silently 
protesting  against  the  usurpation  which  makes  trusteesliip  a 
nominal  holding.  This  leads  back  to  the  thought  that  suggested 
this  exhaustive  disposition  of  a  vital  difference  between  the  Re- 
formers and  their  quondam  friends.  To  go  out  was  to  go  empty- 
handed,  stripped  of  all  claim  to  realty  they  had  in  full  proportion 
assisted  to  acquire.  To  go  out  was  to  seek  shelter  in  the  courtesy 
of  other  denominations,  or  public  halls  and  schoolrooms,  and  then 
slowly,  and  with  an  amazing  self-sacrifice,  build  anew ;  for  there 
is  no  recorded  instance  in  which,  however  equitable  the  claim, 
the  mother  Church  ever  allowed  it  to  those  it  had  thrust  out. 
There  were  a  few  cases  in  which  the  Reformers  swept  so  nearly 
the  whole  membership  and  congregation,  as  at  Uniontown,  Md., 
under  the  lead  of  Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer,  that  the  few  old 
Church  adherents  withdrew,  and  it  has  remained  extinct  to  this 
day.  At  Hampton,  Va.,  it  having  been  found  that  a  large 
majority  of  the  members  were  among  the  original  subscribers  to 
the  church  property,  and  now  pronounced  Reformers,  they  took 
possession  of  it.  In  many  other  places  conflict  was  precipitated 
by  one  party  or  the  other  seizing  the  church,  and  excluding  the 
other  by  changing  locks  and  barring  doors  and  windows.^ 

1  A  striking  example  of  a  church  law  that  invests  the  officials  and  ministers 
with  the  exclusive  proprietary  right  in  realty  of  every  kind  has  recently  heen 
disgracefully  exhibited  in  the  division  of  the  denomination  known  as  "  The  Evan- 
gelical Association."  Methodist  in  doctrine  and  usage,  they  organized  after  the 
model  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  polity.  The  disastrous  division  was 
directly  assigned  to  a  difference  among  the  bishops,  separating  the  preachers  and 
people  into  a  Bishop  Esher-Bowman  and  a  Bishop  Dubs  party.  After  much  con- 
ferential  wrangling,  litigation  was  evoked  by  the  Esher-Bowman  party  to  eject 
from  the  churches  the  Dubs  people  and  preachers,  and  as  they  had  the  same  kind 
of  an  iron-clad  property  law  as  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Penn- 
sylvania decided  that  the  adhering  Esher-Bowman  section  were  the  legitimate 
official  representatives.  It  happened  that  in  Pennsylvania  and  Iowa  specially, 
the  Dubs  party  was  in  many  cases  unanimously,  and  in  many  others,  by  large 
majority,  adherents  of  this  Bishop's  side.  In  both  States,  however,  the  Esher- 
Bowman  section,  armed  with  this  legal  ouster,  proceeded  to  eject  their  opponents, 
though  in  many  places  they  had  no  membership  left  holding  with  them.  In  Iowa, 
sixty  ministers  were  Dubsists,  and  only  six  Esherites.  But  the  six  under  Esher 
elevated  two  of  their  number  as  presiding  elders,  and  they  at  once  entered  legal 
proceedings  to  recover  from  the  sixty  all  the  church  property.  At  a  place  called 
Lisbon,  finding  that  they  could  not  establish  a  rival  church  there,  they  offered  to 
sell  the  congregation  their  own  property,  de  facto,  for  which  they  had  expended 
$4500,  its  worth  being  $9000,  for  $1500.  In  not  a  few  places  these  Christian 
elders  seized  the  property  and  closed  it  up,  as  they  had  no  adherents  in  the  place. 
How  much  farther  these  churchmen  Shylocks  will  press  their  advantage  remains 
to  be  seen  in  the  face  of  a  court  of  public  opinion,  which  must  denounce  these 
unchristian  proceedings.   The  Dubs  party  have  organized  a  General  Conference, 


224 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Shortly  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Convention,  at  a  monthly- 
meeting  of  the  St.  John's  Baltimore  association,  they  adopted  the 
articles  and  organized  as  the  "St.  John's  Associated  Methodist 
Church."^  On  the  return  of  the  delegates  who  represented  the 
Reformers  from  Georgetown,  D.  C,  three  of  the  number,  William 
King,  Gideon  Davis,  and  W.  C.  Lipscomb,  were  accused  by 
Samuel  M'Kenny  and  others  in  the  Quarterly  Conference,  of 
"  speaking  evil  of  ministers  "  in  their  attendance  upon  the  Con- 
vention. Rev.  Xorval  Wilson  was  thfe  preacher  in  charge  and  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  proceedings  of  the  anti-reformers.  A 
resolution  was  passed,  the  Reformers  present  declining  to  vote, 
requesting  the  pastor  to  remove  these  three  from  their  official 
positions.  It  was  agreed  to  by  a  strict  party  vote,  and  the  pastor 
announced  that  they  were  so  removed.  This  was  Friday  evening, 
November  29.  After  the  adjournment  an  informal  conference  of 
Reformers  took  place.  A  meeting  was  called  for  the  Tuesday 
night  following,  permission  having  been  granted  by  Rev.  Stephen 
G.  Balch  and  the  trustees  of  the  Presbyterian  church  to  assemble 
in  that  church.  After  due  consideration  it  was  determined  to 
withdraw  and  form  an  "Associated  Methodist  Church."  A  paper, 
hurriedly  prepared,  was  signed  to  this  effect  by  twenty-two  males 
and  fifteen  females.  On  the  following  Sabbath  they  had  public 
service  at  the  Lancasterian  schoolhouse  in  the  morning  and  at 
Christ  Protestant  Episcopal  church  at  night,  the  use  of  it  being 
granted  by  the  rector  and  vestry,  a  tide  of  sympathy  having 
at  once  set  in  for  the  Reform  party.  Others  joined  them  until 
they  numbered  fifty,  and  steps  were  at  once  taken  to  build  a 
church. 

Nowhere  perhaps  was  more  bitterness  evoked.  M'Kenny,  a 
lawyer  and  most  influential  member  and  citizen,  took  the  role  of 

and  will  carry  with  them  a  large  section  of  the  membership.  Warned  by  this  dis- 
aster, they  revised  their  Discipline  so  as  to  make  it  conform  nearly  to  that  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  its  principles,  and  so  barred  out  the  possibility 
of  another  rupture  by  a  difference  among  life-tenure  bishops,  with  an  empire  in 
property.  The  new  organization  will  be  known  as  "The  United  Evangelical 
Church,"  by  a  decree  of  their  General  Conference,  which  assembled  at  Xaperville, 
ni.,  November,  1894. 

1  See  "  An  Act  of  Incorporation  of  the  Associated  Methodist  Church  of  the  City 
of  Baltimore,"  one  of  the  "Associated  Methodist  Churches,"  adopted  January  19, 
1820.  Baltimore.  Printed  by  William  Woody,  1829.  24mo.  20  pp.  At  a  meet- 
ing of  the  male  members  in  St.  .John's  Church,  Liberty  Street,  the  following  were 
named  as  the  first  board  of  trustees :  Thomas  Mummy,  John  Chappell,  Rev.  James 
R.  Williams,  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  John  J.  Harrod,  Lewis  D.  Lewis,  George 
Evans,  Ephraim  Smith,  and  George  Northerman. 


GEORGETOWN,  D.  C,  CHURCH  CASE 


225 


Dr.  Bond  in  this  local  division.  John  Dickson,  a  brother-in-law 
of  W.  C.  Lipscomb,  one  of  the  disciplined,  and  others  of  good 
report  and  social  standing,  led  in  the  prosecuting  spirit;  and  no 
one  may  doubt  either  the  sincerity  of  their  piety  or  their  convic- 
tions upon  the  subject.  M'Kenny  issued  a  pamphlet  of  twenty 
pages,  in  which  he  gave  an  account  of  what  was  done  in  the 
Quarterly  Conference  and  the  reasons  for  it.  It  was  answered  by 
the  disciplined  Keformers,  King,  Lipscomb,  and  Davis,  the  liter- 
ary work  being  from  the  facile  pen  of  the  last  named,  in  a  pam- 
phlet of  twenty-nine  pages.  Others  followed  on  both  sides,  until 
the  religious  community  knew  not  what  to  believe,  so  diametri- 
cally opposite  were  the  statements.  The  excitement  in  Methodist 
circles  was  intense  and  the  social  estrangement  complete.  Fami- 
lies were  divided,  and  the  parties  passed  each  other  on  the  street 
without  recognition.  It  is  not  contended  that  the  Eeformers  had 
grown  wings  and  were  angelical  in  their  intercourse,  but  there 
are  some  sober  facts  that  cannot  be  denied  in  this  special  case. 
The  flat  denials  and  affirmations  of  the  several  parties  were  such 
that,  in  the  interest  of  a  common  religion,  outside  Christians 
endeavored  to  interpose  and  settle  it.  This  led  the  Reformers  to 
propose  that  the  questions  of  fact  should  be  submitted  to  arbitra- 
tion, they  to  select  two  and  the  anti-reformers  two,  and  the  four 
a  fifth.  It  was  addressed  to  Samuel  M'Kenny;  but  he  declined, 
in  behalf  of  his  friends,  to  have  the  trouble  thus  composed,  and 
it  makes  the  averment  necessary  that  he  had  misstated  the  facts 
and  garbled  the  proceedings.  This  unhappy  state  of  things  con- 
tinued for  a  number  of  years,  until  the  Christian  community, 
scandalized  by  the  unseemly  dissension,  again  endeavored  to 
interpose  and  secure  at  least  a  truce. ^  Accordingly,  Rev.  Dr. 
Stephen  G.  Balch,  Presbyterian,  and  the  rector  of  Christ  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  church  selected  two  each  of  their  most  respected 
members  as  a  committee  of  mediation.  A  carefully  prepared 
letter  was  addressed  simultaneously  to  both  parties,  setting  forth 
the  moral  damage  inflicted  by  the  continuous  strife,  and  asking 
for  a  cessation  and  a  reconciliation,  at  least,  as  to  their  respective 
outward,  social  intercourse,  and  denominational  recognition.  It 
was  sent  June  1,  1832,  and,  on  June  2,  the  Reformers  promptly 

1  The  inspiration  of  this  movement  was  the  fact  that  prior  to  1829,  the  several 
Protestant  churches  of  the  town  had  a  union  prayer-meeting.  On  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Associated  Methodist  Church  tliey  were  invited  to  participate  in  the 
meeting,  whereupon  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  withdrew  from  the  union. 
They  refused  to  worship  with  their  quondam  brethren.  See  letter  of  Gideon 
Davis  in  Methodist  Protestant,  October  21,  1831. 
VOL.  II  —  Q 


226 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


assembled  and  consented  to  any  compromise  the  mediators  might 
arrange.  M'Kenny  and  his  associates  waited  until  June  21,  when 
they  answered,  taking  the  strange  ground  that  they  were  the 
injured  parties,  and  had  the  only  grievance,  which  they  recited 
in  detail  from  their  point  of  view.  They  declined  the  mediation, 
except  on  condition  that  the  Keformers,  following  the  Saviour's 
advice  in  Matthew,  would  confess  and  "repent  of  the  wrong-doing 
without  reciprocation  on  their  own  part.  It  ended  the  corre- 
spondence, but  threw  the  sympathies  of  the  whole  community  to 
the  Reformers;  so  that  they  speedily  finished  their  new  Congress 
Street  church,  without  debt,  grew  rapidly  in  numbers,  and  took 
position  as  the  rival  ^Methodist  Church  of  the  town.^  Like  scenes 
were  frequent  in  not  a  few  other  sections,  where  the  sentiment 
was  so  nearly  equally  divided  as  in  this  place. 

Immediately  after  the  Convention  of  November,  1828,  the 
agents  appointed  in  the  several  States  displayed  great  activity, 
and  by  their  efforts,  often  rendered  at  much  personal  sacrifice, 
not  only  the  existent  Union  Societies  were  saved  from  disintegra- 
tion, but  many  small  groups  of  Reformers  were  organized  and 
placed  under  the  care  of  local  preachers  or  some  gifted  class 

1  Any  one  curious  to  verify  these  facts  can  do  so  by  consulting  the  archives  of 
this  church,  always  accessible,  in  which  the  whole  original  correspondence  is 
preserved  as  well  as  a  circumstantial  record  made  on  its  ofiicial  minutes  of  all 
the  early  proceedings,  and  from  which  the  writer  gathered  his  information  by 
personal  inspection.  The  writer  has  also  some  facts  from  his  venerable  mother- 
in-law,  Mrs.  Henry  Weaver,  now  in  her  eighty-fifth  year,  who  recalls  the  scenes 
of  1828  distinctly,  as  a  young  girl  and  member  of  the  Methodist  church.  The 
division  not  appreciated  in  its  principles  by  the  younger  members,  she  relates  how 
they  would  meet  in  groups  after  Sabbath  service,  and  weep  over  the  situation  so 
full  of  strange  Christian  inconsistency  to  them,  and  menacing  their  youthful 
friendships  as  well.  The  late  venerable  Francis  A.  Baker,  brother  to  Mrs. 
"Weaver,  also  related  to  the  writer  that  he  well  remembered  going  with  his 
mother  to  the  Methodist  Church  one  Sabbath  in  the  winter  of  1828,  after  the 
division.  The  pastor.  Rev.  Norval  Wilson,  arose  to  conduct  the  service,  but  be- 
fore he  could  complete  the  reading  of  the  first  hymn  he  was  overcome  with  emo- 
tion, and  sat  down.  Matthew  Greentree,  a  located  minister,  was  sitting  in  the 
chancel,  and  went  to  Wilson,  then  a  young  man,  and  after  consoling  with  him,  he 
arose  and  went  through  the  service  without  public  explanation.  Mr.  Baker  asso- 
ciated it,  however,  with  the  division.  The  pastor,  looking  over  his  congregation, 
and  finding  the  places  of  many  of  his  former  ofticial  members  vacant,  no  choir 
leader,  as  Lipscomb,  who  so  acted,  had  withdrawn,  and  over  twenty  of  his  prin- 
cipal male  members  not  in  their  places,  he  was  distressed  to  tears  over  the  situa- 
tion. It  is  also  a  part  of  the  record  that  before  the  division  the  contention  l)etween 
the  Reformers  and  the  anti-reformers  was  so  bitter  that  when  Lipscomb,  the 
leader  in  the  choir  gallery,  began  to  sing,  the  anti-reformers  downstairs  attempted 
to  sing  his  choir  down,  alleging  that  they  would  not  sing  after  a  "Radical." 
These  melancholy  facts  are  rehearsed  as  illustrating  better  than  arguments  the 
controversy  and  the  length  to  which  crimination  and  recrimination  was  carried. 


WOBK  OF  REFORM  STATE  AGENTS 


227 


leader.  Many  of  these  inchoate  societies  afterward  perished. 
They  were  frequently  isolated;  it  was  impossible  to  supply  them 
in  time  with  preaching  or  secure  shepherds  to  watch  over  them ; 
while  the  whole  social  power  of  the  old  Church  was  brought  to 
bear  in  their  extirpation.  In  the  West,  George  Brown  in  Pitts- 
burgh, Asa  Shinn  in  Cincinnati,  Cornelius  Springer  near  Zanes- 
ville,  W.  B.  Evans  in  the  vicinage  of  Harrisville,  and  Josiah 
Foster  on  the  Ohio  circuit,  did  valiant  service,  and  made  frequent 
incursions  to  other  sections  in  response  to  call  for  organization 
of  Associated  Methodist  churches.  There  was  a  strong  Union 
Society  at  Steubenville,  and  one  in  Washington,  Pa. ;  at  both 
places  churches  were  organized.  Brown's  "Itinerant  Life"  and 
the  Methodist  Correspondent,  established  in  the  interest  of  Ke- 
form  at  Cincinnati,  November  15,  1830,  are  fruitful  of  infor- 
mation, and  can  be  profitably  consulted  by  those  who  wish 
particulars  of  the  heroic  struggle. 

The  work  of  the  Agents  and  the  progress  of  Reform  over  many 
states  would  require  a  volume  for  recital.  Brief  sketching  must 
suffice.  Dr.  John  French,  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  self-sacri- 
ficing of  the  early  ministerial  Reformers,  did  yeoman  service  for 
the  cause  as  one  of  the  Agents  for  Virginia.  In  the  eastern  sec- 
tion he  organized  a  number  of  societies,  and,  finally  concentrat- 
ing at  Norfolk,  built  a  stately  church,  and  gathered  a  strong 
membership;  but  involved  himself  financially  to  such  an  extent 
in  his  zeal  for  the  cause,  that  he  never  recovered.  He  merits 
embalmment  in  the  amber  of  sacred  remembrance.  The  Agents, 
and  other  leaders,  made  a  specialty  of  camp-meetings,  often 
with  great  success,  and  gathering  the  first  fruits  of  evangelistic 
labors.  A  society  was  organized  at  Rodman,  western  New  York, 
October  8,  1828,  Joseph  Whitehead,  Chairman,  and  John  B. 
Goodenough,  Secretary.  At  Suffolk,  Va.,  Rev.  Dr.  Finney  was 
active,  and,  October  7,  a  meeting  of  Reformers  elected  delegates 
to  the  ensuing  Convention.  Also  at  Xenia,  0.,  a  like  meeting, 
with  Robert  Dobbin,  Chairman,  and  Saul  Henkle,  Secretary.  At 
Alexandria,  Va.,  a  society  was  formed,  and  Rev.  William  Lam- 
phier  and  Thomas  Jacobs  were  leaders  and  delegates  to  the  Con- 
vention. In  Philadelphia  two  societies  existed,  and  though  no 
large  numbers  withdrew,  partially  for  the  reason  that  the  Reform 
sentiment,  while  general  among  both  preachers  and  people,  they 
did  not  coalesce  with  the  Baltimore  brethren  for  various  rea- 
sons, and  were  leniently  dealt  with  by  the  authorities;  but  they 
sent  Dr.  Dunn,  Dr.  James,  and  Messrs.  Mecasky,  Stockton,  and 


228 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Tooker  to  the  Convention.  In  New  Jersey  the  "Reformed 
Methodists"  had  organized  in  anticipation,  and  were  finally 
absorbed,  sending  delegates  to  the  Convention.  At  Coman's 
Well,  Va.,  October  27,  the  meeting  appointed  delegates:  Eichard 
Latimore,  Chairman,  and  W.  H.  Coman,  Secretary.  At  Autaga, 
Ala.,  a  society  was  formed,  C.  T.  Traylor,  Chairman,  and  S.  M. 
Meek,  Secretary.  k.t  Magathy,  Md.,  a  society,  Charles  Waters, 
Chairman,  B.  G.  Boon,  Secretary.  Near  Middletown,  Hyde 
County,  N.  C,  a  camp-meeting  was  held,  October  16,  1828,  with 
congregations  of  over  one  thousand,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty 
white  conversions.  The  preachers  were  Barclif  and  Norman, 
ex-itinerants,  and  Brooks,  Giles,  Bucket,  Floyd,  Miller,  and  Hill, 
local.  The  revival  continued  for  months  after  in  the  county. 
Request  was  made  of  the  Neiu  York  Christian  Advocate  to  publish 
the  good  news.  Of  course  no  notice  was  taken  of  it.  After  the 
Convention  the  organizations  were  more  numerous,  as  it  was  the 
first  expression  of  organic  perpetuation  of  Reform.  Churches 
were  organized  in  Washington,  D.  C,  a  secession  from  the  old 
Foundry  church,  afterward  First  church  on  Ninth  Street,  now 
Central,  and  at  the  Navy  Yard  in  east  Washington.  At  Chester- 
town,  Kent  County,  Md.,  a  strong  society  was  organized.  At 
Ruddle's  Mill,  Ky.,  a  society  was  formed.  The  Green  yille, 
Ala.,  society  adopted  the  Conventional  Articles,  John  Cook, 
Chairman,  Green  Vickers,  Secretary.  At  Madison,  Ind.,  the 
largest  town  then  in  the  state,  a  Reformer  writes :  "  We  are  wait- 
ing for  a  preacher ;  as  soon  as  we  can  be  supplied  with  a  good 
one,  we  are  willing  to  step  out  of  the  old  Church  into  the  new. 
This  is  the  largest  town  in  Indiana;  Reform  has  got  a  good 
foothold  here,  and  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  us  to  have  a 
good  preacher;  for  we  expect  the  old  side  will  send  their  best 
preachers  here  in  order  to  defeat  us."  This  was  a  typical  case. 
In  scores  of  instances  such  buds  of  promise  never  matured  —  the 
reasons  are  obvious;  with  this  latent  sentiment  it  is  not  rash  to 
say  the  Church  was  saturated,  but  by  a  strange  perversion  of 
the  facts  such  failures  were  heralded  as  retractions  of  Reform 
opinions  rather  than  the  absolute  inability  of  the  Reformers 
to  man  the  work  presenting  on  every  side.  Not  only  so,  but 
wherever  tentative  organization  took  place,  at  once  the  whole 
machinery  of  a  powerful  Church  was  set  in  motion  to  crush  it. 
These  are  facts.  How  far  it  was  justified  by  the  principle  of 
self-preservation  depends  upon  the  means  that  were  employed. 
In  a  large  number  of  cases  they  were  certainly  against  all  warrant 


SILENCE  ADDED  TO  SUPPRESSION 


229 


of  Christian  propriety,  and  in  not  a  few  were  shameful  violations 
of  the  social  compact  and  of  business  comity.^ 

Another  aspect  of  the  general  subject  demands  brief  treatment. 
It  is  exhibited  by  a  letter  of  a  western  Pennsylvanian  to  the 
Mutual  Bights  of  this  period,  who  had  attended  a  two  days'  meet- 
ing of  Methodists,  "  where  very  little  had  been  heard  concerning 
reform ;  and  that  he  conversed  freely  with  the  Methodists  on  the 
subject,  and  found  no  opposition  to  the  conventional  articles." 
He  adds,  "  The  fact  is  that  there  would  be  few  opposers  of  reform, 
if  the  subject  could  be  fairly  set  before  the  people."  The  view 
is  correct  and  in  accord  with  the  facts;  but  in  addition  to  the 
policy  of  suppression,  wherever  it  was  possible  to  make  it  effec- 
tive, the  policy  of  silence  was  studiously  enjoined  that  the  very 
existence  of  Reform  might  not  be  advertised,  it  being  intended 
that  the  action  of  the  General  Conference  of  1828  should  be  a 
finality  to  the  Reformation.  A  notable  instance  of  this  policy 
of  silence  was  in  the  announcement  of  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate,  shortly  after,  that  its  columns  could  no  longer  be  used 
for  the  controversy  on  either  side.  It  was  bad  policy  to  advertise 
its  twenty  thousand  readers  that  the  "  pestilent  thing  "  still  lived, 
in  every  number.  It  was  for  this  reason,  probably,  that  Dr. 
Emory's  final  strictures  on  McCaine  were  published  in  the 
Methodist  Magazine,  read  chiefly  by  the  preachers.  The  outcome 
of  this  action  will  be  presently  seen,  when  return  is  made  to  the 
Baltimore  Reformers  and  Dr.  Bond.  A  secession  took  place  in 
Appling,  Ga.,  February,  1829,  of  some  sixty  members,  and  a 
society  was  formed.  Rev.  Moses  M.  Henkle  writes  from  Spring- 
field, 0.,  on  church  building  and  the  progress  of  Reform  in  that 
state.  Nearly  twenty  camp-meetings  were  announced,  to  be  held 
by  Reformers  in  different  parts  of  the  county,  for  the  summer 
and  fall  of  1829. 

The  first  volume  of  the  Mutual  Eights  and  Christian  Intelligencer 

1  There  were  numerous  instances  of  "  boycotting  "  of  Reformers  in  their  busi- 
ness wherever  it  could  be  done  to  any  effect.  The  writer  will  confine  himself  to 
a  single  case  as  illustrative  because  it  has  been  verified  by  living  witnesses.  At 
Carlisle,  Pa.,  a  small  society  of  Reformers  existed  as  a  part  of  an  adjacent  cir- 
cuit. One  of  their  number,  stanch  and  unflinching  in  his  adherence,  was  Samuel 
Hill,  a  baker.  His  former  customers,  most  of  them  Methodists,  finding  that  he 
could  be  moved  no  other  way,  resolved  to  move  him  out  of  the  town  by  withhold- 
ing their  former  patronage  of  his  bakery.  They  succeeded  in  starving  him  out, 
and  he  removed  to  Baltimore,  where  the  Reformers  were  strong  enough  and  ate 
bread  enough  to  keep  him  in  business  until  1842,  when  he  peacefully  departed 
this  life.  His  widow  survived  him  many  years,  and  was  personally  known  to  the 
writer. 


230 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


closed  with  perhaps  three  thousand  subscribers.  It  had  been 
ably  conducted,  the  principal  contributors  being  Snethen,  Shinn, 
"Erasmus,"  and  James  R.  Williams  in  a  serial,  "History  of 
Reform,"  afterward  enlarged  to. book  form.  Much  of  its  space 
was  occupied  with  local  Reform  intelligence,  and  refutation  of 
allegations,  diligently  circulated  and  multiplied,  that  Reform  was 
dying  or  dead.  The  new  hymn-book,  authorized  by  the  late 
Convention,  was  compiled  and  published  by  J.  J.  Harrod,  who 
sustained  to  the  Reform  movement,  as  Book  Agent  and  publisher, 
the  same  relation  that  John  Dickins  did  to  the  Methodist  Church 
as  the  father  of  its  Book  Concern.  It  was  a  small  24mo  volume, 
but  answered  the  purpose  for  some  years. 

A  summary  of  camp-meetings,  held  under  Reform  auspices 
during  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1828,  will  preserve  important 
historical  dates  and  indicate  the  zeal  of  the  brethren.  The  first 
was  held  near  Centreville,  Md.,  in  Judge  Hopper's  Hibernia 
woods,  early  in  August,  1828,  heretofore  noticed.  The  second 
was  at  Coman's  Well,  Sussex  County,  Va.,  October  22-27,  seven- 
teen white  conversions,  with  large  attendance.  The  Union 
Camp,  near  Unionville,  Tenn.,  September  26,  had  eighteen 
conversions,  and  an  attendance  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  on 
Sabbath.  Henkle's  local  preachers'  camp,  in  Baltimore  County, 
Md.,  October  16,  with  thirty-five  conversions.  Near  Middleton, 
Hyde  County,  N.  C,  October  16,  large  congregations  and  great 
spiritual  power,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  conversions  under 
Rev.  W.  W.  Hill.  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  prior  to 
the  provisional  organization  under  the  Conventional  Articles  of 
November,  1828. 

Returning  to  Baltimore,  challenging  always  preeminent  notice 
as  the  cradle  of  American  Methodism,  and  the  birthplace  of 
Methodist  Reform,  the  thread  of  narrative  is  resumed.  Dr. 
Bond,  it  was  found,  had  returned  from  his  pacificatory  work  at 
the  General  Conference  of  May,  1828,  at  Pittsburgh,  and  at  once 
entered  upon  earnest  efforts  to  separate  the  Reformers  from  their 
leaders,  and  so  throttle,  by  social  disintegration,  what  he  so  far 
failed  to  accomplish  by  "writing  it  down."  With  his  profession 
upon  his  hands  he  yet  displayed  unusual  activity;  and  but  for 
the  stigma  attaching  to  his  methods,  the  old  regime  of  govern- 
mental Methodism  is  more  indebted  to  him  for  the  partial  arrest 
of  Reform  than  any  man  in  its  history.  He  took  up  again  the 
rdle  of  intermediary,  and,  adopting  a  current  phrase  of  the  day, 
he  boasted  that  he  was  "Jack  o'  both  sides."    He  now  had  the 


DB.  BOND  AGAINST  THE  McCAlNITES 


231 


backing  of  not  a  few  influential  laymen,  who,  counting  the  cost 
of  a  crisis  now  imminent,  and  by  natural  disposition  inclined 
to  "let  well  enough  alone,"  became  active  in  conservative 
labors.  Adroitly  sinking,  for  the  time,  the  question  of  lay- 
representation  on  its.  merits,  Dr.  Bond  played  upon  the  Church 
loyalty  and  preacher-love  of  the  people  by  making  odious  use 
of  McCaine's  "History  and  Mystery"  and  used  Dr.  Emory's 
"Defence  of  Our  Fathers,"  while  McCaine  was  in  the  South 
under  physical  disability,  which  prevented  the  appearance  of  his 
pulverizing  rejoinder  in  the  "  Defence  of  the  Truth  "  until  early 
in  1829.  The  issues  thus  raised  were  effective  weapons  in  Bond's 
dexterous  hand;  as  it  is  in  accord  with  all  that  is  known  of  human 
nature  in  acrimonious  controversy  to  be  passionately  precipitate 
and  partisan ;  so  that  there  was  little  calm  examination  of  these 
issues  on  the  line  of  evidence;  nor  were  they  regarded  as  of 
primary  importance  by  the  Reformers  themselves. 

A  new  opprobrium  was  invented.    The  "  McCainites "  were 
hissed  as  vile  traducers  and  infamous  slanderers  of  the  "  fathers, " 
whose  names  sat  reverently  upon  the  lips  of  pious  Methodists. 
McCaine,   as  these  pages   have  clearly  shown,   was  amply 
vindicated;  but  it  seemed  most  untimely  for  lay-representation 
to  reveal  the  skeleton  at  this  juncture.     It  affrighted  the 
average  Methodist,  who  closed  the  whole  question  by  shutting 
his  eyes  to  it.    They  redoubled  their  spiritual  labors,  and 
five  or  six  hundred  were  added  to  the  several  city  churches; 
this  was  claimed  as  divine  approval  of  the  old  system,  and  the 
pretence  might  have  carried  conviction  with  it,  but  for  the 
offsetting  fact;  the  city  Reformers  were  also  having  revivals, 
and  everywhere,  as  exhibited,  conducting  most  successful  evan- 
gelistic work.    But  when  the  second  volume  of  the  Mutual 
Mights  and  Christian  Intelligencer  appeared,  enlarged  and  more 
vital  than  ever ;  and  the  second  Convention  of  Reformers,  in  Bal- 
timore, in  November,  was  assured;  and  all  attempts  to  break  the 
solidarity,  or  check  the  growth,  of  Reform  proved  abortive,  —  dif- 
ferent tactics  were  resorted  to  by  the  "  Bondmen, "  so  called. 
The  bimonthly  appearance  of  the  Mutual  Rights  and  the  closure 
of  the  Christian  Advocate  to  the  discussion  put  anti-reformers 
at  a  serious  disadvantage.    The  exigency  was  met  in  Baltimore 
by  the  Itinerant  or  Wesleyan  Methodist  Visitor.     It  was  a  quarto 
of  eight  pages,  bimonthly;  and  the  first  number  appeared 
November  12,  1828.    Melville  B.  Cox  is  named  editor.  He 
was  an  itinerant  from  Virginia,  of  respectable  abilities,  and  a 


232  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


former  advocate  of  Reform  measures.^  The  volumes  are  now 
under  the  eye  of  the  writer,^  and  he  finds  in  the  Prospectus 
confirmation  of  the  policy  of  Dr.  Bond  as  just  described. 
Proposals,  it  seems,  for  such  a  periodical  were  issued  before  the 
late  General  Conference  ;  but  the  conciliatory  (?)  measures  of 
that  body  and  the  overweening  confidence  of  the  episcopal 
authorities  that  Reform  had  been  dealt  a  finishing  stroke,  led  to 
a  suspension  of  the  purpose  for  six  months.  The  editor  sounds 
the  key-note  in  this  charge,  "  The  writers  for  the  Mutual  Rights 
continue  to  assail,  with  unrelenting  severity,  and  to  misrepresent, 
with  studied  ingenuity,  whatever  is  done  by  our  Church  to  pre- 
serve us  in  the  unity  of  the  spirit."  Such  "evil  speaking  of 
ministers  "  was  certainly  equal  to  anything  the  Reform  literature 
ever  produced.  Dr.  Bond  appears  in  the  first  number  in  an 
elaborate  article  on  "The  Convention,"  that  is,  the  ensuing 
Reform  Convention,  signed  "  C  " ;  and,  under  this  incognito,  he 
continued  to  write  voluminously,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  con- 
trolled the  editor  and  the  conduct  of  the  paper.  The  article 
named  was  his  last  attempt  to  be  conciliatory.  One  acquainted 
with  his  style  has  but  little  difficulty  in  identifying  his  writings, 
commanding  as  he  did  an  abundant  rhetoric,  and  a  perspicacity 
that  always  made  his  meaning  plain,  and  a  speciousness  of  argu- 
ment that  quite  satisfied  the  average  reader.  A  bundle  of  the 
first  number  was  sent  to  the  Convention  for  distribution,  "in 
brotherly  kindness  and  politeness,"  as  a  writer  signing  himself 
"Justice,"  says  in  the  next  number,  who  complains  lugubriously 
that  the  Convention  met  this  piece  of  effrontery  with  four 
motions:  one  that  the  papers  lie  on  the  table;  another  that  no 
notice  be  taken  of  them;  a  third  that  they  be  burned  instantly; 
and  a  fourth,  which  was  the  one  adopted,  that  they  be  left  in  the 
house,  subject  to  the  will  of  any  one;  quite  as  polite  a  disposition 
as  an  open  insult  could  be  expected  to  receive  even  from  Christian 
gentlemen.  Imagine  a  bundle  of  the  Mutual  Bights  sent  to  the 
late  General  Conference  for  distribution  and  recognition!  But 
then,  these  brethren  commiserated  the  benighted  condition  of 

1  This  he  denied,  but  so  did  Dr.  Bond,  to  the  amazement  of  all  who  knew  his 
antecedents.  In  later  years,  he  utterly  repudiated  the  accusation  as  boldly  as 
Peter  denied  all  knowledge  of  the  Saviour.  It  was  not,  however,  it  may  be  chari- 
tably assumed,  an  equivocation,  but  a  mental  reservation.  They  meant  that  they 
were  never  Reformers  like  Alexander  McCaine,  for  instance,  and  this  was  true, 
both  as  to  the  extremes  to  which  he  went,  and  the  ability  he  displayed. 

2  Kindly  loaned  the  writer  by  the  Methodist  Historical  Society  of  Baltimore,  to 
whom  he  is  also  indebted  for  access  to  other  sources  of  information. 


''THE  ITINERANT''  AND  DR,  BOND 


233 


the  "disaffected  spirits."  Christian  Keener,  before  honorably 
named,  came  to  the  assistance  of  Dr.  Bond  in  a  long  series 
of  articles  styled,  "A  Defence  of  Methodism."  They  were 
in  good  temper  and  of  marked  ability,  traversing  the  whole 
question  and  making  the  most  of  the  "  well  enough  "  view  pos- 
sible. He  wrote  under  his  own  signature,  about  the  only  instance 
of  the  kind  in  the  Itinerant,  though  the  Mutual  Eights  had  been 
severely  arraigned  for  its  anonymous  correspondents.  Kunning 
parallel  with  this  series  Dr.  Bond,  as  "C,"  reviewed  the  Keport 
of  the  late  General  Conference  on  Keform,  and  entered  into  a 
sarcastic  analysis  of  the  Conventional  Articles.  They  furnished 
him  ground  for  invidious  comparisons  and  suppositious  infer- 
ences. The  gravamen  of  his  criticism  was  that  the  framework 
was  loose  and  the  details  unfinished.  No  allowance  was  made 
for  the  merely  provisional  nature  of  the  Articles.  Not  a  few  of 
the  Reformers  were  no  better  satisfied  with  some  of  them  than 
Dr.  Bond  professed  to  be.  And  it  may  be  in  place  to  state  that 
while  the  Reformers  were  a  unit  as  to  the  principle  of  Repre- 
sentation, the  mode  and  degree  of  it  was  an  open  question  anent 
which  they  differed.  In  fact,  there  were  two  parties  of  them  in 
the  leadership,  what  may  be  called  a  Williams -McCaine  party, 
who  were  for  as  much  reproduction  of  the  Old  Church  polity  as 
was  not  inconsistent  with  this  principle,  holding  rigid  views  as  to 
connectionalism  and  itinerancy;  and  a  Snethen-Stockton  party 
holding  to  a  bold  departure  from  the  ancient  polity  with  fuller 
Annual  Conference  autonomy,  congregational  rights,  and  a  flexi- 
ble itinerancy.  This  view  will  be  more  fully  treated  when  the 
Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 
are  considered.  It  was  also  reviewed  by  Dr.  Bond,  as  well  as 
Dr.  Jennings's  strictures,  afterward  issued,  in  book  form,  in  his 
"Exposition."  Dr.  Bascom's  "Summary  of  Rights"  was  also 
elaborately  reviewed  by  "Inquirer."  In  addition,  the  periodical 
was  the  vehicle  of  counter  blasts  and  contradictory  statements 
from  correspondents  at  nearly  all  points  where  Reform  was 
organized. 

It  was  continued  for  three  years,  accomplishing  a  great  deal 
as  a  conservator  of  episcopal  authority;  but  its  patrons  gradu- 
ally tired  of  the  thrashing  of  old  straw.  Midway  of  the  first 
volume  Cox's  name  disappears  as  editor;  and  after  this  it  was 
impersonal.  Dr.  Bond  coming  into  still  closer  touch  with  it,  and 
in  the  last  number  he  makes  a  personal  explanation  as  to  his  rela- 
tions to  the  controversy  and  an  acknowledgment  of  his  authorship 


234 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  so  much  in  it.  The  Itinermt  had  had  a  faithful  ally  in  the 
Georgia  Christian  Repository  for  a  year  or  more.  The  Itinerant 
discharges  its  Parthian  arrow  at  Eeform  in  the  jubilate:  "The 
existing  state  of  things  did  not  any  longer  require  a  paper 
devoted  to  the  defence  of  our  ecclesiastical  economy.  They  con- 
sider the  war  as  ended  in  the  total  discomfiture  of  the  enemy." 
The  Chinese  used  to  defeat  their  enemies  by  a  clamorous  beat- 
ing of  tomtoms,  fireworks,  and  painted  dragons.  It  is  the 
object  of  this  History,  sixty-five  years  later,  to  exhibit  "the 
total  discomfiture  of  the  enemy."  The  writer's  apology  for 
devoting  so  much  precious  space  to  this  periodical  in  a  fairly 
impartial  brief  of  its  contents,  is  to  mark  contrast  with  the  scant 
notice  of  Eeform  periodicals  by  the  historians  of  the  Old  Church. 
The  last  number  of  the  Itinerant  bears  date  October  26,  1831. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


Election  of  representatives  to  the  Convention  of  1830  by  the  Annual  Conferences 
as  formed ;  history  of  their  formation  from  1828  to  1830  with  rosters  of  original 
members ;  interesting  facts  connected  therewith  —  Evans's  **  Questions  and  An- 
swers on  Church  Polity,"  known  as  "  yellow  jackets  "  —  Snethen  as  a  travelling 
organizer  in  his  old  age  — Camp-meetings  —  A  few  exceptions  to  the  rule  of 
withdrawals  without  certificates  —  First  Auxiliary  Superannuated  Society,  the 
Phoebian  of  St.  John's  Church,  Baltimore  —  Vitality  of  Lay-Representation  as 
a  principle  shown ;  extenuation  for  the  hundreds  who  lapsed  from  the  cause 
under  crucial  tests  of  the  time  —  Success  of  the  new  Church  despite  all  hinder- 
ances  proven  by  the  figures  —  Ordination  papers  and  their  validity  in  separa- 
tists—Bascom  prepares  for  the  Constitution  of  the  newphurch  his  Summary 
of  Rights ;  its  mishap,  and  the  Elementary  Principles  substituted  —  Appendix 
I,  first  volume. 

Article  16tli  of  the  Convention  of  1828  requiring  that  the 
representatives  to  the  Convention  of  1830  should  be  elected  by 
Annual  Conferences,  immediate  steps  were  taken  to  organize  such 
wherever  practicable.  Accordingly,  on  the  19th  of  December, 
1828,  the  expelled  and  withdrawn  ministers,  and  the  lay -delegates 
deputed  by  the  societies  of  North  Carolina,  assembled  at  Whit- 
aker^s  chapel,  Halifax  County,  and  organized  by  electing  Eev. 
E.  B.  Whitaker,  President  pro  tern.,  and  Eev.  Miles  Nash, 
Secretary.  The  only  accessible  records  show  that  it  was  com- 
posed of  eight  ministers,  seven  of  whom  had  been  expelled  for 
their  Keform  principles  from  the  mother  Church,  and  one,  W.  W. 
Hill,  who,  though  tried,  made  such  a  convincing  argument  in  his 
own  defence  that  the  committee  acquitted  him.  He  subsequently 
withdrew.  The  seven  other  ministers  were  James  Hunter, 
E.  B.  Whitaker,  William  Bellamy,  Henry  Bradford,  Miles  Nash, 
William  Price,  and  Abriton  Jones.  There  were  also  five  licensed 
preachers  in  attendance  and  twelve  lay-delegates.  All  were  from 
the  Eoanoke  Union  Society  except  the  preachers,  the  Granville 
Society  not  having  had  time,  owing  to  the  short  notice  of  the 
meeting,  to  elect  delegates.  W.  W.  Hill  was  elected  President 
and  travelling  Agent  for  the  state,  and  at  once  entered  upon 
active  labors.  Such  are  the  meagre  details  of  the  first  organized 
Conference  of  three  circuits. 

235 


236 


niSTOBY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  ministers,  preachers,  and  lay-delegates  from  the  Maryland 
Union  Societies  assembled  at  St.  John's  church,  Baltimore,  April 
2,  1829,  to  organize  an  Annual  Conference.^  After  provisional 
formation,  on  the  second  day  an  election  by  ballot  of  a  President 
resulted  unanimously,  save  one  vote,  for  Kev.  Xicliolas  Snethen; 
AVilliam  H.  Bordley,  Secretary.  The  following  appear  to  be 
enrolled  as  members :  — 


Ministers  Lay-Delegates 


Nicholas  Snethen 

John  Chappell 

Alexander  ^^IcCaine 

George  Evans 

Samnel  K  .Tpnnino"c  IVf  T) 

Wesley  Starr 

-TflrOpQ  T?    \V  i  1 H  n  m  q 

11  tfll  1  1  1           J-Va      TT    1  1  1  1      1  ■  1 

.Tnhn  .T  T-TnTfrtH 

Dennis  B.  Dorsey 

John  Rose 

Thomas  McCorniick 

Richard  A.  Shipley 

Duther  J.  Cox 

Robert  B.  Varden 

Daniel  E.  Reese 

John  H.  Kennard 

Jonathan  Forrest 

Thomas  W.  Hopper,  M.D. 

Eli  Henkle 

Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper 

William  0  Pool 

W^illiam  Harper,  Jr. 

j_>cxxj  a  ill  ill  Xv  liquet  1  LioUll 

Willia^m  H  Bordlev 

Isaac  Webster 

James  Parrott 

John  Davis 

Rowland  Rodgers 

William  Kesley 

Abalard  Stevenson 

J.  B.  Eergusson 

Christopher  Owings 

John  C.  Erench 

Jasper  Peddicord 

Erederick  Stier 

Thomas  Mummy 

William  W.  Wallace 

John  Eliason 

Joseph  Scull 

George  Collard 

Kendall  Cropper 

James  Moore 

John  Eernon 

Daniel  Peregoy 

David  Crall 

Dennis  A.  Smith 

James  Hanson 

John  May 

Reuben  T.  Boj^d 

William  Bawden 

Charles  Jacobs 

Thomas  Dunn,  M.D. 

1  See  manuscript  minutes  of  Maryland  Conference  in  first  volume  of  its  Minutes 
in  custody  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern.  There  are  three  portly  volumes  of 
these  Minutes,  all  of  which  were  printed,  save  those  of  the  first  Conference. 
Though  so  ordered,  no  copies  are  extant,  and  it  is  evident  that  the  order  was  not 
carried  out. 

Also  "History  of  the  Maryland  Annual  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church,"  by  J.  T.  Murray  and  T.  H.  Lewis.  Baltimore.  W.  J.  C.  Dulany, 
agent.    M.  P.  Book  Concern.    1882.    12mo.   124  pp.  Cloth. 


ORGANIZATION  OF  ANNUAL  CONFERENCES  237 


The  business  of  the  Conference  most  important  as  establishing 
precedents,  was  the  motion  of  L.  J.  Cox  to  organize  auxiliary 
societies  for  the  support  of  superannuated  ministers,  etc.,  through- 
out the  Conference.  The  motion  of  Dr.  Jennings  was  to  invest 
the  President  with  the  appointing  power,  subject  to  the  revision 
of  a  Committee  of  Appeals.  "  On  motion,  it  was  unanimously 
resolved  that  we  are  as  much  as  ever  opposed  to  slavery."  This 
action  appears  to  have  been  taken  by  common  consent,  even  such 
proslavery  men  as  McCaine  making  no  objection  to  offset  the 
proslavery  construction  put  upon  the  fifteenth  Conventional 
Article  by  the  anti-reformers  in  Maryland.  Of  those  enrolled, 
Jonathan  Forrest,  Nicholas  Snethen,  and  Alexander  McCaine  had 
long  and  honorable  records  as  ex-itinerants.  The  Conference 
adjourned  April  7,  to  meet  March  31,  1830,  at  the  same  place. 
On  the  same  day  this  Conference  organized,  April  22,  1829,  a 
second  Conference  assembled  in  North  Carolina,  at  Sampson's 
meeting-house,  and  Paris  says:  "At  the  opening  of  this  session, 
several  ministers  gave  their  names  and  were  received  as  members 
who  had  not  had  opportunity  of  attending  the  first  session ;  .  .  . 
a  fourth  circuit  was  added  to  the  previous  number."  Arbitrary 
proceedings  in  the  western  part  of  the  State  led  to  other  enforced 
withdrawals.  The  preacher  in  charge  of  Guilford  circuit,  after 
service  at  Moriah  chapel,  took  Col.  William  Gilbreath  aside  and 
admonished  him  that  he  "  must  neither  read  nor  patronize  the 
Mutual  Eights.^'  He  indignantly  answered,  "What  I  buy  and 
pay  for  is  my  own,  and  I  will  read  as  I  please  " ;  whereupon  the 
preacher  said,  "I  will  give  you  four  weeks  to  consider  about 
quitting  the  Mutual  Eights,  and  if  by  that  time  you  do  not  dis- 
continue it,  I  will  have  you  expelled  from  the  church  " ;  to  which 
Gilbreath  rejoined,  "  You  need  not  give  me  five  minutes,  for  I 
will  read,  and  also  circulate  it,  if  anybody  else  wants  to  read  the 
work."  It  was  an  illustration  of  Dr.  Bond's  averment,  that  "a 
man  may  be  a  good  Christian  and  not  a  good  Methodist."  Gil- 
breath consulted  his  brethren  of  the  chapel,  feeling  alarmed  for 
the  rights  of  himself  and  brethren  as  Christians,  and  on  the  7th 
of  the  ensuing  month  of  May  called  a  meeting  of  the  members, 
E,ev.  John  Coe,  Chairman,  and  Joseph  Gilbreath,  Secretary,  and 
after  considering  the  menace  of  the  preacher,  which  they  set  forth 
in  resolutions,  also  resolved,  "That  we  consider  it  a  duty  which 
we  owe  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity  to  withdraw  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church."  The  society  thus  organized  con- 
sisted of  thirty-four  members,  so  that  when  the  circuit  preacher 


238 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


reached  this  appointment  on  his  next  round  he  found  but  two  of 
the  flock  in  his  church.  The  Rev.  John  Coe  took  temporary- 
charge  of  them.  Similar  proceedings  led  to  the  withdrawal  of 
Alexander  Bobbins,  John  Wilburn,  and  Alson  Gray,  local 
preachers,  and  a  society  of  sixteen  members  was  organized  at 
Liberty,  so  that  from  the  three,  Moriah,  Bethel,  and  Liberty, 
six  circuits  were  subsequently  formed  in  western  North  Carolina. 
Alson  Gray  took  the  field  and  was  indefatigable  as  an  organizer. 
A  memorable  instance  was  that  at  Sandy  Eidge,  where  he  formed 
a  class  of  three  women, —  Mrs.  Lindsey,  and  Mrs.  Anna  and  Har- 
riet Chipman, —  who  after  more  than  a  year's  prayerful  fidelity 
were  rewarded  with  a  gracious  revival,  and  their  numbers  were 
greatly  augmented,  so  that  this  class  in  1844  had  grown  into  a 
society  of  170  members. 

April  19,  1829,  a  Conference  was  held  in  New  York,  at  the 
Sullivan  Street  church,  of  "Methodist  Reform"  preachers  and 
delegates,  claiming  to  be  an  adjourned  meeting  of  an  earlier  date, 
called,  as  Secretary,  by  Aaron  G.  Brewer,  one  of  the  ministers 
originally  of  the  Stillwell  Reformers,  but  who  had  now  divided, 
one  section  adhering  to  him  and  his  friends,  and  another,  holding 
stricter  itinerant  views,  inclining  to  the  Associated  Methodists. 
A  call  appeared  in  the  Mutual  Eights  for  November,  1829,  to  all 
"Associated  Methodists"  and  "Reformed  Methodists"  of  "New 
York  and  eastward  "  to  assemble  at  Sullivan  Street  church  on  the 
third  Thursday  in  April,  1830.  It  was  signed  by  Isaiah  Sickles, 
Robert  McGee,  George  Thomas,  Aaron  G.  Brewer,  and  George 
Philips.  They  met  accordingly,  and  after  organizing  by  calling 
George  Thomas  to  the  chair  and  George  Smith,  secretary,  the 
following  were  recognized  as  members.  Elders :  George  Thomas, 
James  Jorman,  George  Philips,  Asahel  Gilbert,  Jonas  Hobbs, 
Levi  Bronson,  John  B.  Taylor,  Joseph  Carwine.  Deacons: 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  William  Clayton,  Gershom  Rowland, 
Thomas  K.  Witsel.  Lay-representatives :  Matthew  Vogal,  James 
Fowler,  George  Smith,  Ephraim  Barness,  Nathaniel  Hopper, 
David  Holmes,  W.  McCutchen,  Joseph  Weeks.  George  Thomas 
was  elected  President.  The  stationing  power  was  placed  with 
two  ministers  and  two  laymen,  with  the  right  of  appeal  to  the 
preachers.  Three  were  received  into  the  travelling  connection: 
Joseph  Carwine,  Albert  Piercy,  and  Joseph  Lowe.  Aaron  G. 
Brewer's  name  does  not  appear,  as  he  had  meantime  removed  to 
Georgia  and  had  become  associated  with  the  Appling  County 
society  in  February,  1829,  and  thencefo^-th  took  a  most  active 
part  in  the  Associated  Methodist  churches. 


MORE  INITIAL  ANNUAL  CONFERENCES  239 


The  first  Virginia  Conference  organized  at  Lynchburg,  Va., 
May  1,  1829,  in  the  Presbyterian  church.  Nicholas  Snethen  was 
present  as  a  visitor  and  preached  the  ordination  sermon.  From 
the  plan  of  appointments  it  appears  that  Alexander  McCaine  was 
elected  President,  with  J.  B.  Tilden,  George  Keed,  Miles  King, 
B.  G.  Burgess,  William  Pinnell,  Richard  Latimore,  William  M. 
Coman,  Dr.  John  French,  and  John  Percival,  ministers.  No  list 
of  delegates  is  accessible.  Three  camp-meetings  were  held  in 
Virginia  during  the  ensuing  summer:  at  Coman^s  Well;  near 
Blount's  meeting-house.  Isle  of  Wight  County;  and  one  near  Nor- 
folk. The  first  South  Alabama  Conference  organized  May  1, 
1829.  It  was  attended  by  sixteen  preachers,  whose  names  are 
not  obtainable  from  the  records.  Eev.  Britton  Capel  was  elected 
President,  and  Seymour  Powell,  Secretary.  The  work  was  laid 
off,  and  preachers  appointed,  among  the  number  Peyton  Bibb. 
A  second  Conference  was  held  September  16,  1829,  which  reported 
881  in  membership  in  society.  It  was  convened  near  Smith's 
Ferry,  in  Perry  County.^  A  call  was  made  for  the  organization 
of  a  Philadelphia  Conference  June  25,  1829,  by  Dunn,  Cropper, 
Dickens,  and  Webb.  It  assembled  in  "Keyser's  church,"  October 
8-10,  1829.  Nicholas  Snethen  was  elected  Chairman  pro  tern., 
but  presided  during  the  whole  session.  The  venerable  John 
Smith,  an  honorable  ex-itinerant  from  Delaware,  was  elected 
Conference  President,  and  the  appointing  power  was  placed  in 
his  hands,  subject  to  an  appeal  from  the  preachers.  Eighteen 

1  A  "History  of  Methodism  in  Alabama,"  by  Anson  West,  D.D.  Nashville 
Pub.  House,  M.  E.  Church,  South.   1893.   Large  8vo.   755  pp.  Cloth. 

A  very  thorough  work,  devoting  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  much 
larger  space  than  historians  of  the  M.  E.  Church  allow,  and  containing  some  facts 
which  the  writer  of  this  "  History  of  Reform  "  has  found  nowhere  else.  Chap. 
17,  covering  pp.  404  to  426,  as  also  chap.  38,  pp.  740  to  755,  are  given  to  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church.  Portions  of  it  are  laboriously  argumentative  to  show  its 
polity  in  the  weakest  light,  with  some  facts  which  need  not  be  gainsaid  as  to  the 
tendencies  of  extremes  in  its  system.  Altogether,  however,  those  who  wish  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  the  organization  of  the  Church  in  Alabama  cannot  afford 
to  overlook  these  chapters  as  furnishing  much  information,  which  it  is  impracti- 
cable to  incorporate  in  this  "  History  of  Reform."  Its  flippant  criticisms  can  be 
excused  in  such  a  loyal  Methodist  Episcopalian  as  Dr.  West.  He  furnishes  infor- 
mation on  a  few  points.  The  first  Annual  Conference  was  held  at  Rocky  Mount, 
and  he  says  that  it  is  certain  that  Revs.  Peyton  Bibb,  Britton  Capel,  Arnold 
Campbell,  Peyton  S.  Graves,  Samuel  S.  Meek,  Elijah  Meyers,  Eli  Terry,  and  prob- 
ably Joseph  Walker,  were  present.  He  also  informs  that  as  early  as  1823,  in 
Dutch  Bend,  Autauga  County,  a  meeting  was  held  composed  of  local  preachers 
who  memorialized  the  General  Conference  of  1824  for  larger  recognition,  and 
initiated  Reform  in  the  state. 


240  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 

ministers  and  fifteen  licensed  preachers,  with  the  laity,  composed 
the  Conference,  but  their  names  are  not  accessible.  There  were 
representatives  present  from  the  E-eformed  Methodists  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware,  New  Jersey,  and  the  western  section  of  Xew 
York.  From  the  plan  of  appointments  a  list  of  preachers  present 
is  partially  supplied,  as  well  as  indicating  the  territory  covered 
by  the  work  in  its  inchoate  condition :  Philadelphia,  Thomas  W. 
Pearson;  Kensington  (Philadelphia),  James  W.  Holmes:  Darby 
(Pa.),  Thomas  L.  Coates;  Sussex  (Del.),  Hiram  B.  Harold; 
New  Castle  (Del.),  Samuel  Budd;  Monmouth  (X.  J.),  George 
A.  Ray  bold;  New  Hanover  (N.  J.),  James  Brindle;  Barnesboro 
(N.  J.),  William  Stevens;  Trenton  Station  (N.  J.),  John  S. 
Christine;  Sharptown  (N.  J.),  Thomas  Cheeseman;  Andes 
(Pa.),  Thomas  West;  Salem  (Pa.),  Joseph  Barlow;  Havanna 
(N.  Y.),  John  G.  Wilson;  New  York,  Thomas  G.  Witsel;  Mis- 
sionary in  New  Jersey,  James  Chester.  Strong  resolutions  were 
passed  against  intemperance,  and  in  favor  of  Sabbath-schools; 
also  in  support  of  the  Mutual  Rights.  The  committee  signing 
this  report  was  Thomas  Dunn,  Joseph  Cramer,  Ebenezer  Cropper, 
W.  S.  Stockton. 

As  early  as  1826  "  Eeformed  Methodist "  societies  were  formed 
in  Putherford,  Bedford,  and  Williamson  counties  in  Tennessee. 
At  a  delegated  convention  of  these  societies,  held  at  Unionville, 
August  30,  1828,  of  which  Hayman  Bailey  was  Chairman  and 
Eichard  Warner,  Secretary,  these  societies  consolidated  and  re- 
solved to  cooperate  with  the  Methodist  Eeformers  in  Baltimore 
and  elsewhere,  and  W.  B.  Elgin  represented  them  in  the  General 
Convention  of  November,  1828.  They  accepted  the  Conventional 
Articles,  organized  a  Quarterly  Conference,  and  supplied  the  field 
with  preachers  until  an  Annual  Conference  could  be  organized. 
The  first  Tennessee  Conference  convened  at  Union  Camp-ground, 
near  Unionville,  Tenn.,  October  8,  1829.  The  only  information 
concerning  it  is  communicated  to  the  Mutual  Rights  by  Thomas 
Potts  and  James  L.  Armstrong,  Corresponding  Committee,  Decem- 
ber 5,  1829.  Nineteen  members  were  recognized,  eight  ordained 
ministers  and  eleven  laymen.  Three  other  preachers  were  en- 
titled to  seats  but  absent,  and  seven  others  under  license  within 
the  Conference  bounds,  which  now  included  all  the  Southwest  to 
Texas.  Thomas  Potts  was  the  Superintendent  of  Union  circuit, 
and  probably  the  first  President  of  the  Conference.  Dr.  James  L. 
Armstrong  was  the  leading  layman.  The  second  Conference  was 
to  be  held  at  "Ebenezer,  in  Eutlierford  County,  near  Hoover's 


ANNUAL  CONFERENCES  CONTINUED  241 


Gap."^  There  were  twenty  conversions  at  the  accompanying 
camp. 

The  first  Ohio  Conference,  which  included  all  the  western  ter- 
ritory occupied  by  Eeformers,  assembled  in  Cincinnati,  October 
15,  1829.  The  following  is  the  roster  of  ministers  and  laymen, 
a  number  of  whom  were  not  present :  — 


MiNISTEBS 


George  Waddle 

Hector  Sandford 

John  Wilson 

Saul  Henkle 

James  McKoy 

Jonathan  Flood 

C.  Springer 

Ambrose  Jones 

Evert  Richman 

Moses  M.  Henkle 

Joseph  Thrapp 

James  Towler 

James  Flemming 

Adjet  McGuire 

Jeremiah  L.  Leslie 

Robert  Dobbins 

William  Hamilton 

Joel  Dolby,  Sr. 

Benson  Goldsbury 

Reuben  McDaniel 

Daniel  Inskeep 

Asa  Shinn 

William  Hughey 

John  Price 

Allison  G.  Keys 

John  Haughton 

Edward  Kearns 

David  English 

1  A  year  later  Dr.  Armstrong,  in  furnishing  minutes  of  the  Conference  of  1831, 
states  that  an  abstract  of  the  Conference  of  1830  was  furnished  the  Mutual  Rights, 
acknowledged,  but  never  published.  It  was  in  this  way  that  these  records  are 
irrevocably  lost. 

The  Tennessee  Conference  of  September,  1831,  was  in  "Bedford"  county,  and 
therefore  probably  at  the  Union  Camp-ground  near  Unionville.  The  writer,  on  a 
visit  to  this  Conference,  had  pointed  out  to  him  by  Rev.  Dr.  B.  F.  Duggan,  the  old 
barn  in  which  the  first  "  Union  Society"  was  organized,  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
town.  The  Conference  of  1831  reorganized  under  the  constitution,  and  from  the 
full  minutes  furnished  by  Dr.  Armstrong  in  both  the  Correspondent  and  Methodist 
Protestant,  a  list  of  ministers  and  laymen  is  given,  most  of  whom  were  probably 
in  the  original  body,  and  it  is  here  preserved  in  honor  of  these  outpost  pioneers  of 
Reform :  President  Richard  W.  Morris,  Oswell  Potts,  James  Ray,  James  Williams, 
Samuel  Elliott,*  B.  S.  Ragsdale,  Allen  Blankership,  Conellum  H.  Hines,  Charles 
L.  Jeffries,*  Joseph  Walker,*  William  B.  Elgin,*  William  Peck,*  John  Cox,* 
Thomas  D.  Stanley,  Hayman  Bailey,  David  Goodner,  Thomas  S.  Stillwell,*  James 
Edmondson,  Thomas  Potts,  William  Potts,  and  John  McClure*;  lay  delegates: 
Thomas  Burgess,  Richard  Warner,  George  Jones,  James  L.  Armstrong,  Joshua 
Hooker,  Mark  Whitaker,*  Bailey  Chandler,*  Silas  Tarver,*  Edward  D.  Tarver, 
Micajah  B.  Procter,*  John  Martin,*  William  Sanson,* and  Elijah  Renshaw.*  Resin 
B.  Collins  and  James  D.  Hines,  from  southern  Kentucky,  were  received,  also  a 
letter  from  Jacob  Sexton,  Arkansas  Territory,  asking  to  be  received  with  thirty 
members,  also  a  like  request  from  East  Tennessee.  The  membership  reported 
was  417.  "  A  Missionary  and  Preachers'  Aid  Society  "  was  organized.  The  next 
Conference  at  Civilorder,  Bedford  County,  first  Wednesday  in  December,  1832, 
James  L.  Armstrong,  Secretary. 

*  Absent. 

VOL.  II  — B 


242  HISTORY  OF  METHOmST  REFORM 


Ministers  {continued) 


Jesse  D.  Dorman 
William  B.  Evans 
Amos  Chitvvood 
William  B.  Collins 
Joseph  H.  Overstreet 
Benjamin  W.  Johnson 
James  Sims 
George  Brown 
Charles  Avery- 
William  Stevenson 
James  Meendon 
Josiah  Foster 


Lewis  Browning 
Jeremiah  Browning 
Charles  Scott 
George  Palmer 
Jacob  Meyers 
Levi  Reeves 
Samuel  Thompson 
James  Paris 
James  Ward 
Roddick  H.  Horn 
William  Reeves 
Joel  Dolby,  Jr. 


Lay-Delegates 


R.  Thompson 
Joseph  Grubb 
Robert  Curran 
Olcote  White 
William  Camp 
Henry  Nash 
John  Johnson 
Joseph  Rockhold 
John  Adair 
William  Henton 
Joseph  Whitridge 
Archibold  McConkey 
Joseph  Newlove 
Nathaniel  Cartnell 


Stephen  Bell 
Obed  Wain 
Amos  Metcalf 
Philip  Hare 
John  Home 
William  Young 
Ezekiah  Hall 
William  Disney 
Moses  Lyon 
Robert  Monroe 
James  H.  Wallace 
Henry  C.  Dorsey 
Joseph  J.  Amos 
Christopher  Wallmsley 


It  was  "  resolved  that  W.  B.  Evans's  'Brief  View  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  set  forth  in  Questions 
and  Answers, '  be  approved  and  recommended  by  this  Conference, 
and  that  another  edition  be  published  forthwith."  This  little 
pamphlet  has  a  history  which  may  be  covered  at  this  its  first 
mention.  It  was  a  clear  and  concise  showing,  and  a  few  years 
after  a  supplement  was  issued  by  Kev.  John  H.  Honour  of  South 
Carolina  in  the  same  form,  setting  forth  the  polity  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  in  contrast,  with  a  brief  outline  of  Reform 
history  and  Dr.  Bascom's  "Summary  of  Rights."  A  copy  now 
before  the  writer  is  one  of  the  ninth  edition,  1844,  and  makes  a 
24mo  paper-covered  booklet  of  fifty-four  pages.  jSTumerous  edi- 
tions were  issued,  and  it  had  a  wide  influence  as  an  educational 
pamphlet  where  Reform  was  little  known.  From  the  accident 
that  it  was  issued  in  yellow  paper  covers,  it  came  to  be  nicknamed 


USE  OF  THE  PBES8  BY  REFORMERS 


243 


by  the  brethren  of  the  old  Church  "  the  yellow  jacket,"  in  travesty 
of  its  biting  logic  and  convincing  facts.  It  is  estimated  that  one 
hundred  thousand  copies  were  issued  by  the  Baltimore  Book  Con- 
cern. In  later  years,  when  the  bitterness  of  the  contention  had 
subsided,  its  circulation  was  no  longer  pressed  by  the  Reformers, 
until  in  still  later  years  the  continued  misrepresentations  of  the 
origin  and  the  principles  of  the  new  Church  by  the  press  of  the 
old-side  led  to  Paris^s  "Manual,"  and  within  fifteen  years  to 
Dr.  L.  W.  Bates's  "  Contrast."  Notwithstanding  these  issues,  the 
writer's  sober  judgment,  reenforced  by  that  of  many  others  con- 
versant with  the  past  forty  or  fifty  years,  is  that  it  has  been  a 
fundamental  error  of  the  Reformed  Church  that  the  press  was 
not  extensively  availed  of  and  large  expenditure  made  to  set 
before  Christians  of  every  name  in  dispassionate  argument  the 
history  and  issues  of  1820-30  in  Methodism.  While  there  is 
nothing  so  disreputable,  or  that  should  be  utterly  frowned  out  of 
existence,  as  Church  proselytism,  if  this  denomination  had  a 
right  to  organize  under  the  necessities  of  expulsion  and  persecu- 
tion, and  its  principles  are  worth  the  sacrifice  of  its  noble  Fathers 
and  Founders,  then  no  labor  can  be  too  great  to  vindicate  their 
memories  and  perpetuate  their  principles  in  a  distinct  denomina- 
tion. It  may  be  truthfully  said,  to  the  lasting  honor  of  the 
Reform  Methodists,  that  it  has  not  been  a  proselyting  body. 
Dr.  Bassett,  who  was  closely  connected  with  it  in  the  West  from 
before  1828,  bears  this  testimony:  "The  writer  never  kne-^^  an 
instance  in  which  our  brethren  sought  to  effect  secession  from 
the  old  Church,"  and  in  the  writer's  nearly  fifty  years'  connection 
with  it  no  such  instance  is  recalled  in  the  East  and  South.  If 
such  cases  can  be  historically  proven,  they  must  be  the  exceptions 
to  a  certified  rule.  The  Ohio  Conference  invested  the  stationing 
authority  in  the  President,  Asa  Shinn,  with  Cornelius  Springer 
and  George  Brown.  Eight  preachers  were  elected  deacons,  and 
nineteen  deacons  elders,  so  great  was  the  demand  for  properly 
authorized  ministers  in  the  new  and  enlarging  work.  John 
Houghton  was  elected  Secretary.  The  numbers  reported  in  mem- 
bership about  two  thousand.  It  was  recommended  that  Ken- 
tucky, Indiana,  and  Illinois  be  set  off  as  Conferences  so  soon  as 
the  resident  quarterly  conferences  shall  take  the  necessary  action. 

The  Rochester  Conference  of  the  "  Methodist  Society  "  met  in 
Ontario,  Wayne  County,  N.  Y.,  February  13,  1830.  In  com- 
mittee of  the  whole  it  resolved  to  adopt  the  Conventional  Articles 
of  the  Associated  Methodist  Churches.    Dr.  James  Covel  was 


244 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


elected  President  and  Orren  Miller  Secretary,  and  the  body- 
adopted  the  name  of  Genesee  Conference.  The  appointments 
were  divided  into  Kochester,  Conhocton,  Genesee,  and  Oneida 
districts.  The  membership  is  reported  at  442,  though  a  number 
of  the  circuits  made  no  report.  Orren  ]\[iller  was  a  preacher  in 
the  old  Church  since  1811,  and,  entertaining  Reform  principles, 
awaited  an  opportunity  for  church  connection  akin  to  them.  In 
1821  he  entered  the  "Methodist  Society,"  and  in  1824  organized 
the  Rochester  Conference.  The  preachers  stationed  for  1830 
were:  E.  Andrews,  Z.  Covel,  J.Fister,  X.  Palmer,  D.  P.  Ketchum, 
Dr.  J.  Covel,  0.  Miller,  J.  A.  Miller,  S.  Brownson,  E.  Brownson, 
T.  Buck,  Joseph  Jacobs,  B.  Landon,  H.  Sheffield,  T.  Freeman, 
Colburn  Blake,  S.  Pierce,  C.  IMars,  J.  West,  J.  Heath,  and  J. 
Donnald,  missionaries;  G.  E.  Steadman,  D.  Washburn,  O.  Medary, 
without  appointments.  The  next  Conference  to  meet  at  Ogden, 
Monroe  County,  first  Thursday  in  February,  1831.^ 

The  first  Vermont  Annual  Conference,  according  to  previous 
notice,  assembled  at  Shelburne,  February  19,  1830,  and  Luther 
Chamberlain  was  elected  President  and  Chandler  Walker,  Secre- 
tary. The  preachers  present  were:  Luther  Chamberlain,  Na- 
thaniel Gage,  Chandler  Walker,  David  Ferris,  and  Thomas  A. 
Carpenter.  The  laymen:  Daniel  Xorton,  Solomon  Holcomb, 
Edward  Farrington,  Nathaniel  Stockwell,  and  Abner  Croff.  Next 
Conference  to  meet  at  Monktonborough,  last  Tuesday  in  May, 
1831. 

The  first  Georgia  Annual  Conference  was  held  in  Newton 
County,  on  the  22d  of  July,  1830.  It  elected  Eppes  Tucker,  an 
ex-itinerant  of  the  old  Church,  President,  and  Harrison  Jones, 
Secretary.  The  following  are  named  by  Paris  as  ministers :  Eppes 
Tucker,  Aaron  G.  Brewer  (who  took  an  active  part  in  bringing 
about  the  absorption  of  the  New  York  "  Methodist  Society  "  with 
the  Associated  Methodists,  and  on  removal  to  Georgia,  pending 

1  This  has  also  been  designated  as  the  First  Annnal  Conference,  but  as  the 
Rochester  Conference  of  the  "Reformed  Methodists"  complied  with  the  only 
condition  precedent,  the  adoption  of  the  Conventional  Articles  to  become  a 
Methodist  Protestant  body,  they  acted  as  such,  and  should  be  recognized  as  the 
first  Conference.  The  ministers  present  at  the  conference  of  1831  were  Isaac 
Fister,  Salmon  Brownson,  James  Heath,  Xelson  Palmer,  Orren  Miller,  J.  A. 
Miller,  Elias  B.  Dare,  Henry  Lyon,  and  Zenos  Covel.  The  laymen  were  Reuben 
Moffat,  Robert  Graham,  Edmond  Wanray,  Washington  Rathburn,  Jacob  Bigelow, 
James  Stevens,  Eden  Foster,  David  P.  Green,  and  Samuel  Strowger.  The  deacons 
were  Robert  Andrews  and  Thomas  Buck.  Orren  Miller  was  elected  President, 
and  Zenos  Covel  Secretary.  The  number  of  members  reported  was  411,  with  no 
returns  from  Bennington  circuit  and  Utica  station. 


ANNUAL  CONFERENCES  OBOANIZED  245 


the  transition,  took  a  most  prominent  part  in  the  new  Church,  and 
for  many  years  was  abundant  in  labors  for  the  cause  of  Christ 
and  Reform  Methodism),  Jesse  Morris,  R.  W;  W.  Wynne,  James 
Lowery,  R.  P.  Ward,  Ethel  Tucker,  Robert  Walker,  Charles 
Williamson,  Harrison  Jones,  John  A.  Russell,  Robert  McCorkle, 
Thomas  Gardner,  Henry  Saxon,  B.  Sweringen,  James  Hodges, 
Abraham  Lucas,  William  Pentecost,  J.  R.  Swain,  and  C.  P.  Wither- 
spoon.  There  were  twelve  lay-delegates  in  attendance,  but  their 
names  are  not  given.  There  were  laid  off  eleven  circuits  and  one 
mission.  A.  G.  Brewer  was  appointed  Conference  missionary.  A 
camp-meeting  was  held  in  connection  with  the  Conference.  About 
a  dozen  churches  were  soon  organized  in  different  counties,  some 
as  early  as  1827. 

The  second  Virginia  Conference  was  held  May  20,  1830,  in 
Suffolk,  and  continued  five  days.  The  following  ministers,  recog- 
nized as  members,  were  probably  also  members  of  the  first  Con- 
ference. 


Ministers 

Laymen 

Alexander  McCaine 

Robert  H.  Gray 

John  French 

George  Percival 

Miles  King 

William  S.  Slater,  Sr. 

Benedict  Burgess 

Samuel  Berry 

W.  H.  Coraan 

T.  Graham 

Eichard  Lattimore 

J.  J.  Burroughs 

Horatio  E.  Hall 

Lewis  F.  Cosby 

Crawley  Finney 

John  L.  Diggs 

Charles  Roundtree 

Elijah  Phillips 

William  Pinnell 

David  Armistead 

Ira  A.  Easter 

John  Phillips,  Sr. 

John  M.  Willis 

Matthew  Powell 

John  Blount 

Jacob  M.  Jennings 

John  G.  Whitfield 

R.  B.  Thomson 

J.  J.  Burroughs  was  appointed  Secretary,  Alexander  McCaine 
Chairman,  until  the  election  of  Dr.  John  Erench,  President.  The 
Conference  by  resolution  suggested  the  formation  of  a  Book  Eoom, 
and  to  place  the  official  organ  under  the  General  Convention  with 
the  election  of  an  editor.  There  were  seven  circuits  and  one 
station,  Lynchburg,  to  which  Alexander  McCaine  was  appointed 
this  year. 

The  Alabama  Conference  held  its  second  session  near  Smith's 
Ferry,  Perry  County,  September  16,  1830.    Britton  Capel  was 


246 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


reelected  President,  and  Seymour  Powell  Secretary.  The  follow- 
ing ministers  were  recognized  as  members,  and  were  probably 
also  members  of  the  first  Conference  session :  — 


Ministers 

Laymen 

Britton  Capel 

Peyton  S.  Graves 

T?      S     T.l  \7in  (TCfi^TI 
XV*    O*  J^l  V  ill^OtVXi. 

Peyton  Bibb 

T.5irlrin  (^It^vplQTifl 

Josepli  D.  Lee 

JJXCtXiv  IIUWCVIU. 

James  Sharp 

Robert  Mayes 

Cipnrcrfi  \  cirY\r\hfA\ 

OctiiJ.u.t/i  OiictU.U.UUA. 

"William  Cole 

Senjamin  Duqd. 

•Tnmpc;  T-Tnllpv 

OCjfJ-LlUU.i   JT  UWtJli 

Benjamin  Dulaney 

James  K.  Benson 

Samuel  Oliver 

Edward  H.  Cook 

John  B.  Purdew 

Absalom  Carter 

Samuel  H.  Meek 

John  Cook 

James  Meek 

James  D.  Stanton 

John  Meek 

James  M.  Powell 

Wiley  J.  Stanton 

C.  S.  Tray  lor 

John  McCormick 

Thomas  M.  Smith 

Peter  Loper 

Edward  H.  Cook 

Jacob  Dorley  and  Elias  Carroll  were  received  as  travelling 
preachers.    The  work  was  divided  into  five  vast  circuits. 

At  the  second  session  of  the  Tennessee  Conference,  held  on  the 
second  Thursday  in  September,  1830,  the  records  give  as  preach- 
ers: E.W.Morris,  President,  0.  Potts,  T.  Burgess,  B.  H.  Rags- 
dale,  W.  M.  Elliott,  H.  Bailey,  and  T.  L.  Potts,  who  received 
appointments.  Four  new  circuits  were  formed  and  the  members 
reported  345. 

Thus  an  effort  has  been  made  to  preserve  from  oblivion  the 
preachers  and  laymen  who  were  foremost  in  the  formation  of  the 
new  Church  in  active  labors.  A  few  incidental  matters  need 
mention  to  cover  the  two  years  from  the  Convention  of  November, 
1828,  to  that  of  November,  1830.  The  reader  will  recall  the 
presence  of  the  venerable  Nicholas  Snethen  at  various  Confer- 
ences, notably  at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  and  then  as  far  north  as 
Philadelphia.  Recalling  his  asthmatic  ailment  and  other  in- 
firmities, such  travel  by  the  slow  post-chaise  of  that  day,  and 
largely  at  his  own  charges,  is  an  indication  of  the  zeal  and  fidelity 


CERTIFICATES  REFUSED:  EXCEPTIONS  NOTED  247 


of  this  ministerial  father  of  Eeform.  Alexander  McCaine  in  the 
South  was  indefatigable,  answering  all  calls  and  serving  wherever 
his  presence  was  demanded.  The  mention  is  deserved,  and  be- 
sides it  serves  to  refute  the  calumny  of  Robert  Emory  in  the 
"Life"  of  his  father  as  to  McCaine,  in  the  crucial  period  of 
1829-30.  His  filial  zeal  betrayed  him  into  the  false  statement: 
"The  party  which  McCaine  had  attempted  to  promote  became 
ashamed  of  their  champion ;  and  he  himself  shortly  after  retired 
from  public  view,  to  repent,  we  would  fain  hope,  of  the  wrong  he 
had  done  to  the  living  and  the  dead,  to  individuals  and  to  the 
Church."  ^  Camp-meetings  were  frequent  both  North  and  South. 
Six  were  held  in  Maryland  during  the  summer  of  1830,  and  all 
of  them  eminently  successful.  New  "Associated  Reformed 
churches  "  are  announced  with  phenomenal  frequency,  consider- 
ing the  difficulties  under  which  in  every  instance  they  were  formed. 
Not  a  few  were  isolated,  and  in  consequence  of  the  impossibility 
of  keeping  them  supplied  with  preaching,  after  heroic  struggle 
were  compelled  to  disband.  A  church  of  over  300  white  and  some 
150  colored  members  grew  up  in  the  city  of  Louisville,  Ky. ;  but, 
after  various  mishaps,  suitable  pastoral  supply  being  chief,  it  dis- 
organized, and  for  half  a  century  the  new  Church  was  unknown, 
until  within  a  very  recent  period  a  reorganization  has  taken  place. 

An  instance  has  been  discovered  by  the  writer  in  which  the 
pastors  of  the  old  Church  consented  to  give  certificates  to  with- 
drawing members,  and  it  is  noted  in  the  interest  of  impartial 
history.  Dr.  John  French  organized  by  invitation  a  church  of 
thirty -two  members  in  Boston,  September,  1830,  and  says:  "I 
am  informed  that  the  stationed  preachers  here  conduct  with  great 
propriety,  and  grant  certificates  of  dismission  freely  to  all  that 
ask  for  them."^ 

1  During  McCaine 's  missionary  travels  in  the  South  in  1830,  arriving  at  Colum- 
bia, S.  C,  while  the  legislature  of  the  state  was  in  session,  he  was  invited  to 
preach,  on  a  Sabbath  night,  by  a  formal  and  unanimous  resolution  of  the  House, 
which  he  accepted.  There  is  said  to  have  been  no  precedent  for  this  action.  It 
helps  to  counteract  the  vilifications  of  the  Itinerant,  some  of  whose  correspond- 
ents hounded  his  tracks  at  this  very  time. 

2  This  is  the  exception  to  the  rule  noted  in  a  previous  part  of  this  History  as 
to  Dr.  Buckley's  averment  and  the  "withdrawal"  of  members  from  the  M.  E. 
Church  in  the  early  days,  certificates  being  refused  them.  Since  this  exception 
was  discovered  and  here  acknowledged,  another  has  been  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  George 
Brown,  in  his  "  Itinerant  Life,"  p.  425,  referring  to  the  fifty  ladies  who  withdrew 
in  1827:  "All  these  Christian  ladies  obtained  certificates  of  their  good  standing 
from  Rev.  J.  M.  Hanson,  the  preacher  in  charge.  This  was  at  least  one  act  of  jus- 
tice on  the  part  of  Mr.  Hanson."  If  a  fact,  there  is  no  other  mention  of  it  in  the 
Reform  or  anti-reform  literature  of  the  time.  Dr.  Brown  does  not  give  his  author- 


248  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  first  auxiliary  Superannuated  Society  was  organized  in 
Baltimore,  at  St.  John's  church,  known  as  the  Phoebian  Society, 
by  the  women  of  the  station,  which  continued  a  useful  existence 
for  fifty  years  at  East  Baltimore  station,  and  then  was  merged  into 
the  regular  Conference  society.  It  is  the  first  instance  on  record. 
The  second  volume  of  the  Mutual  Rights  was  brought  to  a  close 
with  the  number  of  November  1,  1830.  It  was  turned  over  to 
the  Convention  by  its  editor  and  publisher,  Dennis  B.  Dorsey. 
It  had  been  faithfully  conducted. 

Two  years  of  the  organizing  and  propagating  crusade  of  the 
agents  appointed  by  the  Convention  of  1828  had  resulted  success- 
fully, as  the  preceding  pages  give  evidence.  There  was  a  vitality 
in  the  principle  of  Lay-Representation  that  could  not  be  extin- 
guished, despite  the  fact  that  of  the  itinerants  who  had  espoused 
and  expressed  adhesion  not  one  in  ten  found  it  possible  to  main- 
tain open  fealty.  Erom  such  a  distinguished  example  as  H.  B. 
Bascom  downward,  the  alternative  was  want  of  bread  or  plenty. 
As  in  his  own  case,  had  no  dependents  been  involved, —  wife, 
children,  parents,  and  family  ties, —  it  is  morally  certain  that  he 
and  many  others  would  have  followed  the  example  of  Shinn, 
Brown,  Springer,  and  their  compeers;  but  while  the  heroic  self- 
abnegation  of  such  men  will  never  cease  to  win  the  meed  of 
approval  and  admiration,  reflection  need  not  be  cast  upon  the 
hundreds  who  hesitated  and  then  silently  submitted,  hoping,  it 
may  be,  for  the  more  propitious  opportunity.  Reflection  is  on 
those  only  who,  with  the  zeal  of  perverts  and  the  ambition  of 
ecclesiastics,  not  only  cowered,  but  curried  favor  of  Episcopacy 
by  denying  their  opinions  and  repudiating  Reform  associations. 
It  is  the  province  of  this  History  to  mark  these  to  the  extent  the 
truth  of  history  demands,  and  to  rescue  the  memory  of  their 
quondam  friends  from  the  aspersions  so  persistently  cast  upon 
them  by  criminating  chroniclers.  That  a  vastly  larger  number 
of  laymen  should  have  been  intimidated,  meeting  the  crisis  with 
submission,  if  not  repudiation,  not  only  accords  with  the  prophet's 

ity  for  it.  He  was  resident  in  the  West  and  not  presumed  to  have  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  local  doings  of  Baltimore.  Elsewhere  in  this  volume  is  also 
noted  the  fact  that  the  book  of  register  made  by  Hanson  during  his  administration 
was  left  by  him  in  the  parsonage,  and  came  into  the  possession  of  a  Reformer, 
Robert  B.  Varden,  and  sections  of  it  were  afterward  published  in  facsimile,  also 
given  in  this  volume,  but  this  register  furnishes  no  evidence  that  these  women 
were  given  certificates.  Conceding,  however,  that  it  was  as  Dr.  Brown  states,  it 
makes  only  a  second  exception  to  what  was  the  well-known  rule,  and  so  does  not 
affect  the  force  of  my  objection  to  his  editorial  statement. 


SUCCESS  OF  THE  REFORM  MOVEMENT 


249 


plaint,  "like  people  like  priest,"  but  is  more  excusable.  Among 
them  defections  were  plentiful. 

As  already  stated,  the  pages  of  both  the  Itinerant  and  the 
Mutual  Rights  were  largely  occupied  with  gleesome  evidences  in 
the  former  that  "Keform  was  going  down,"  and  in  the  latter  with 
refutations  of  false  reports  during  these  two  years.  Some  one 
personally  flaunting  the  declaration  "  going  down  "  in  the  face  of 
Asa  Shinn,  he  made  characteristic  answer:  "Yes,  it  is  going 
down,  but  it  is  like  the  Ohio  River,  broadening  and  widening  as 
it  goes."  It  became  a  catch-phrase  with  the  Reformers,  and  with 
much  truth,  as  shall  be  presently  exhibited.  Williams,  than 
whom  no  one  was  better  prepared  for  a  truthful  estimate,  in  his 
"  History  "  says :  "  Taking  all  the  circumstances  into  view,  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  had  prospered  beyond  all  precedent. 
When  she  first  organized  under  the  Conventional  Articles  of  1828, 
there  were  perhaps  not  more  than  1000  members,  though  the 
Convention  represented,  probably,  3000  members  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church.  The  Convention  of  1830  represented 
about  5000  members  of  the  Associated  Methodist  churches. 
Four  years  after  that  period,  in  1834,  there  were,  according 
to  the  minutes  of  the  respective  Annual  Conferences,  26,587 
members  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  Of  the  5000 
estimated  for  1830,  2000  were  probably  conversions  under 
evangelistic  labors  at  camp  and  revival  meetings  under  Reform 
auspices.^ 

At  the  several  Annual  Conferences  organized  from  1828  to 
1830,  representatives  were  elected  to  the  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion. Williams  says:  "Much  anxiety  was  felt  on  all  hands. 
The  Episcopal  Methodists  feared  the  development  of  principles 
and  rules  of  government  which  would  cast  their  system  more 
deeply  into  the  shade,  but  hoped  we  would  fall  out  by  the  way ; 

iThe  late  Bishop  Matthew  Simpson,  in  his  "One  Hundred  Years  of  Metho- 
dism," p.  314,  says,  speaking  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  from  1828  to 
1830 :  "  In  this  secession,  within  a  few  years,  prohably  some  30,000  members  with- 
drew." Though  in  the  later  years  of  his  useful  life  he  was  an  uncompromising 
advocate  of  Lay-Representation,  in  common  with  all  the  historians  of  the  Old 
Church,  it  seems  impossible  for  him  to  refer  to  the  "  Radicals  "  without  manifest 
prejudice  and  bias.  This  thirty  thousand  secession  served  a  purpose  on  page  314, 
though  it  is  a  wild  guess  without  data,  but  on  page  125  of  the  same  work  he  says, 
in  a  brief  tabulation  of  statistics  for  the  period,  misleading  in  its  character :  "  The 
secession,  so  far  as  numbers  were  concerned,  scarcely  occasioned  a  ripple  on  the 
surface."  On  page  123,  he  qualifies,  "  It  was  supposed  that  from  1828  to  1834  there 
may  have  been  thirty  thousand."  It  more  probably  did  not  amount  to  a  third  of 
it  in  these  six  years  all  told. 


250 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


some  of  them  predicted  this  with  great  assurance,  and  fixed  our 
final  dissolution  at  a  period  not  exceeding  three  years.  The 
Reformers,  on  the  other  hand,  while  they  felt  great  solicitude 
that  the  Convention  might  prepare  a  system  worthy  of  admira- 
tion, did  not  appear  to  dread  any  fatal  diversity  of  opinion  and 
sentiment  which  might  militate  seriously  against  the  general 
interests  of  the  churches." 

About  this  time  some  of  the  leaders  of  anti-reform,  through 
their  periodical,  gave  utterance  to  the  following  Eomish  dogma : 
"If  a  minister  expatriate,  he  thereby  dissolves  the  compact  in 
virtue  of  which  he  received  and  holds  his  official  functions ;  and 
of  course  those  functions  cease;  those  official  powers  are  the 
property  of  the  Church  for  whose  use  they  were  conferred,  and 
were  lent  on  certain  stipulated  terms,  which  terms  can  only  be 
performed  imthin  the  Church  to  which  the  property  belongs." 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  care  of  the  logical  consequence,  for 
if  true,  then  all  the  Protestant  ordinations  of  Europe  are  spurious 
and  invalid  as  derived  from  Luther,  Zwingli,  Melanchthon,  Cal- 
vin, and  the  fathers  of  the  English  reformation.  At  this  day  the 
ministers  of  the  mother  Church  will  marvel  at  such  assumptions, 
forgetting  that  the  whole  trend  of  ecclesiastical  dogmas,  as  they 
were  "received  from  their  fathers"  of  the  Coke-Asbury-Soule 
school,  was  Eomeward.  On  this  theory  Wesley's  ordinations 
were  invalid,  and  so  the  "fathers."  It  was  of  a  piece  with  the 
logical  incoherence  and  inconsequence  that  bolstefred  the  anoma- 
lous Methodist  Episcopal  system.  The  whole  warp  and  woof  of 
it  is  fallacy  and  sophism,  however  specious. 

The  Committee  of  the  Convention  of  1828  to  prepare  a  Consti- 
tution and  Discipline  had  diligently  and  judiciously  used  the 
intervening  time  in  its  preparation,  while  others  invented  inde- 
pendent drafts.  Snethen  had  said  in  1828 :  "  Our  book  of  disci- 
pline will  never  be  complete  without  a  bill  of  rights."  A  close 
friend  of  H.  B.  Bascom's  among  the  leading  laymen,  John  J. 
Harrod,  had  suggested  to  him  that  as  the  Convention  would  need 
such  a  bill  he  should  prepare  one.  Willing  to  serve  the  cause  in 
any  way  possible  to  him,  he  complied.  He  was  travelling  agent 
for  the  American  Colonization  Society,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Cincinnati,  at  the  time.  His  biographer  informs  that  he  went 
to  the  city,  supplied  himself  with  the  "Federalist"  and  other 
works,  and  shut  himself  up  to  its  composition  in  a  country  inn  a 
few  miles  back  of  the  city.  The  product  was  that  masterful 
"Summary  Declaration  of  Rights,  explanatory  of  the  Reasons 


bascom's  ''bill  of  rights''  identified  251 


and  Principles  of  Government."  ^  It  laid  under  contribution  his 
strongest  and  freshest  powers,  and  is  the  one  outcome  of  his  facile 
pen  which  will  never  perish.  It  consists  of  twenty-two  Articles, 
links  of  a  chain  without  that  "  weakest  point "  endangering  it. 
It  was  then  forwarded  to  Harrod  in  Baltimore,  but  did  not  reach 
him  until  the  Convention  had  passed  its  initial  work  and  was 
far  advanced  to  completion.  It  was  presented,  respectfully  re- 
ceived, then  withdrawn,  apparently  by  Bascom's  friend.  It  was 
solicited  again,  but  seems  no  more  to  have  come  before  the  Con- 
vention officially.  Bascom's  biographer,  Kev.  Moses  M.  Henkle, 
offers  surmises  for  its  failure,  and  makes  claims  for  its  recog- 
nition, even  to  the  exclusion  of  the  "Elementary  Principles," 
which  had  already  passed  as  a  bill  of  rights  by  the  Convention. 
It  would  be  futile  to  consider  these  surmises.  It  was  prefixed  to 
the  first  edition  of  the  printed  Constitution  and  Discipline  by 
Harrod,  Book  Agent,  as  "prepared  by  a  friend."  Its  authorship 
was  some  years  afterward  publicly  acknowledged  by  Bascom.^  It 
was  subsequently,  by  authority  of  several  General  Conferences, 
bound  up  with  the  Constitution  as  an  exponent  of  its  principles, 
and  widely  circulated  in  various  forms  by  Eeformed  Methodists 
in  America  and  in  England.  The  full  text  of  it  is  presented  in 
Appendix  I  to  first  volume.  A  new  chapter  must  recite  the 
doings  of  the  Convention  of  1830. 

1 "  Life  of  Bascom,"  by  Moses  M.  Henkle,  p.  371.  Also  Methodist  Protes- 
tant, September  21, 1850,  an  editorial  producing  this  evidence  of  authorship. 


CHAPTER  XV 


Convention  of  1830  in  Baltimore ;  organization  ;  roster  of  members ;  composition 

—  Principal  business  forming  a  Constitution  and  Discipline  ;  various  drafts  pre- 
sented representing  the  two  parties  of  centrifugalists  and  centripetalists ;  anal- 
ogous parties  in  the  United  States  Convention  of  1787— The  Constitution  as 
adopted ;  incidents  of  the  Convention  ;  contention  over  certain  views ;  Snethen 
opposed  to  another  "  Church  "  ;  preferred  "  churches  "  ;  striking  views  on  New 
Testament  polity  by  Snethen  and  Dr.  A  Webster  ;  also  by  Wesley  in  his  Notes 

—  Love  the  essence  of  law;  law  the  embodiment  of  ecclesiasticism ;  logical 
philosophy  as  bearing  upon  it  —  History  of  certain  articles  of  the  Constitution ; 
certain  moots  as  to  non-action  of  the  Convention,  Articles  of  Religion,  etc. 

—  Incidental  business  of  importance  —  Who  finally  signed  the  Constitution 

—  Convention  adjourned  with  prayer  by  Asa  Shinn ;  Francis  Waters,  President, 
Lipscomb  and  Brown,  Secretaries. 

The  Associated  Methodist  Churches  met  in  Convention  at  St. 
John's  church,  Liberty  Street,  Baltimore,  November  2,  1830. 
Rev.  Dr.  John  French  was  called  to  the  chair,  and  the  Conven- 
tion opened  with  religious  service.  W.  C.  Lipscomb  of  George- 
town, D.  C,  was  appointed  Secretary.  It  may  be  well  to  note 
the  fact,  as  a  precedent,  that  he  was  not  a  representative  to  the 
Convention,  but  filled  the  position  with  such  satisfaction  until 
the  afternoon  of  the  22d  of  November,  that  a  vote  of  thanks  was 
unanimously  tendered  him.  The  following  named  persons  were 
found  duly  elected  members  of  the  Convention,  by  the  respective 
Annual  Conferences  of  the  Associated  Methodist  Churches :  — 


Vermont 


Rev.  Nathaniel  Gage 


Mr.  Daniel  Norton 


New  York  and  Canada 


Rev.  Daniel  Bromley 


Genesee 


Rev.  Isaac  Fister 
Rev.  Elias  B.  Dare 
Rev.  James  Covel  ^ 
Rev.  Orren  Miller  i 


Mr.  John  Woodward  i 
Mr.  William  G.  Miller  i 
Mr.  Eden  Foster  i 
Richard  Harris  i 


1  These  were  absent. 
252 


REFORM  CONVENTION  OF  NOVEMBER,  1830  253 


New  York 


Rev.  George  Thomas 


Mr.  George  Smith 


Pennsylvania 


Rev.  John  Smith 
Rev.  Thomas  Pearson 
Rev.  Hiram  R.  Harrold 
Rev.  George  A.  Raybold 
Rev.  Samuel  Budd 
Rev.  James  Brindle 
Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Dunn 
Rev.  Kendall  S.  Cropper 
Rev.  Dr.  Phineas  Price  ^ 
Rev.  Taber  Chadwick 
Rev.  Sylvester  Hutchinson 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Morgan 
Rev.  John  Fernon 
Rev.  David  RundelP 


Caleb  Rodney,  Esq.i 
Mr.  Archibald  Campbell  i 
Mr.  Ebenezer  Cropper 
Mr.  Arnold  S.  Naudain 
Mr.  Jeremiah  Stull 
Mr.  Uriah  Baxter  i 
Mr.  Elisha  Chew 
Mr.  David  B.  Salter 
Mr.  James  Moore  ^ 
Mr.  Robert  Hodgson 
Mr.  Dr.  Wm.  K.  Mason  * 
Mr.  Daniel  R.  Ackleyi 
Mr.  Jeremiah  Walton  i 
Mr.  William  S.  Stockton 


Maryland 

Rev.  Eli  Henkle 
Rev.  Wesley  W.  Wallace 
Rev.  Dr.  John  S.  Reese 
Rev,  Dennis  B.  Dorsey 
Rev.  Thomas  H.  Stockton 
Rev.  Isaac  Webster 
Rev.  Wm.  C.  Pool 
Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  K.  Jennings 
Rev.  Francis  Waters,  D.D. 
Rev.  James  R.  Williams 
Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer 
Rev,  Benjamin  Richardson 
Rev.  Slingsby  Linthicum 
Rev.  Thos.  Melvin 


Hon.  Philemon  B.  Hopper 
Mr.  Gideon  Davis 
Mr.  John  J.  Harrod 
Mr.  Henry  Willis  i 
Col.  W.  Doughty 
Mr,  Daniel  McLeod 
James  H.  Devor,  Esq. 
Mr.  Abner  Linthicum 
Mr,  Elias  Crutchley 
Mr.  Lewis  Shipley 
Mr.  Henry  Webster 
Mr.  John  Constable 
James  Parrott,  Esq.i 
Mr.  Richard  Chambers 


Virginia 


Rev.  Alexander  McCaine 
Rev.  Dr.  John  French 
Rev.  Dr.  Crawley  Finney 
Rev.  Dr.  W.  J.  Holcombe 
Rev.  Miles  King 
Rev.  Benedict  Burgess 


Everard  Hall,  Esq. 

Mr.  John  Victor  ^ 

Mr.  William  S.  Sclater,  Sr. 

Dr.  Andrew  Woodly  i 

Dr.  Hiram  Harding 

Mr.  B.  Starke 


Rev.  Wm.  W.  Hill 
Rev.  Willis  Harris 
Rev.  Josiah  R.  Horn 


North  Carolina 

S.  Whitaker,  Esq. 
Mr.  John  F.  Bellamy  i 
Mr.  Ivy  Harris! 
1  These  were  absent. 


254  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Rev.  Aaron  G.  Brewer 
Rev.  Eppes  Tucker 


Rev.  Britton  Capel 


Rev.  Asa  Shinn 
Rev.  Cornelius  Springer 
Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen  i 
Rev.  George  Brown 
Rev.  Charles  Avery 
Rev.  John  Fordyce  ^ 
Rev.  Matthew  Nelson 
Rev.  David  Edwards  i 


Georgia 


Alabama 


Ohio 


Col.  Richard  A.  Blount 
Charles  Kennon,  Esq. 


Dr.  Edward  H.  Cook 


Mr.  James  Foster 
Mr.  Wilson  S.  Thorn 
Mr.  Thomas  McKeever 
Mr.  J.  B.  W.  Haynesi 
Mr.  John  Souderi 
Mr.  D.  P.  Wilkinsi 
Mr.  Stephen  Beall  i 
Mr.  H.  C.  Dorsey  i 


Western  Virginia 
Rev.  George  A.  Read  Mr.  James  Carpenter 

Massachusetts 
Rev.  Thomas  F.  Norris  Col.  Amos  Binney  ^ 


Kev.  Baxter  H.  Eagsdale  and  Edward  B.  Tarver  were  elected 
representatives  from  the  Tennessee  Conference,  Se^jtember,  1830, 
but,  not  being  present,  and  the  notice  of  the  Conference  not  hav- 
ing been  published  in  the  Mutual  Bights,  though  sent  and  acknowl- 
edged, this  Conference  does  not  appear  at  the  ISTovember,  1830, 
Convention,  as  it  should  have  done. 

Those  specified  (see  foot-note)  were  not  present,  so  that  out 
of  114  ministerial  and  lay  representatives  elected  83  were  in 
attendance,  quite  as  large  a  proportion  as  attended  the  General 
Conferences  of  the  Old  Church;  though  these  delegates  had  their 
expenses  provided  for,  w^hile  those  of  the  Associated  churches, 
for  the  most  part,  met  their  own  expenses,  as  well  as  the  loss 
incident  to  three  weeks'  absence  from  business  by  all  the  laity 
and  the  local  ministers,  who,  a  careful  examination  shows,  were 
honored  with  seats  in  the  proportion  of  one-half  the  ministerial 
representation  in  nearly  all  the  Conferences.  This  statement  is 
demanded  to  meet  the  carping  criticism  quite  frequent  at  that 
time  by  their  enemies,  that  the  laymen  could  not  be  induced  to 
attend  legislative  assemblies  of  the  Church,  at  least  from  any 
distance.    It  was  also  a  principle  with  the  Eeformers  not  to  over- 

1  These  were  absent. 


PHII.EMON  B.  HOPPER. 


THOMAS  MCCORMICK. 


FRANCIS  WATERS. 


CONVENTION'S  INFLUENTIAL  PERSONNEL  255 


weight  these  assemblies  with  numbers,  for  obvious  reasons;  so 
that  it  was  a  provision  of  many  years'  standing  in  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  new  Church  that  a  General  Conference  should  not  be 
composed  of  more  than  one  hundred  members,  ministerial  and 
lay.  The  careful  reader  of  these  volumes  will  also  observe  that 
this  Convention  was  composed  of  the  ablest  and  most  influential 
men  of  the  Societies,  and  represented  the  intelligence,  piety, 
business  and  social  position  of  their  respective  neighborhoods, 
so  that  after  two  generations  their  names  continue  to  represent 
these  virtues  in  the  Church,  though  there  have  not  been  wanting 
degenerate  sons  of  these  heroic  sires. 

The  sessions  were  held  three  times  a  day,  those  of  the  morning 
and  afternoon  at  St.  John's  and  those  of  the  evening  at  a  school- 
room on  South  Street,  a  kind  of  executive  session,  as  it  was 
found  desirable  and  necessary  to  stop  the  eavesdropping  of  their 
quondam  brethren,  for  such  deliberations.  It  will  also  be  noted 
that  Canada  and  Western  Virginia,  though  recognized,  do  not 
appear  as  separate  Annual  Conferences ;  though  the  Discipline  of 
1830  notes  a  New  York  and  Lower  Canada  boundary  for  a  Con- 
ference, while  Western  Virginia  ^  is  included  in  the  Ohio  district. 
The  Convention  then  went  into  a  ballot  for  President,  and  Francis 
Waters,  D.D.,  received  forty-five  out  of  fifty -four  votes. 

The  writer  has  just  carefully  perused  the  extant  records,  con- 

1  This  Conference,  now  numerically  the  second  largest  in  the  denomination, 
not  being  of  the  original  number,  merits  distinctive  notice  as  to  the  initial 
Reform  work  in  this  state.  Rev.  George  Nestor,  D.D.,  at  the  Annual  Conference 
of  1878,  delivered  a  semi-centennial  sermon,  bristling  with  important  data  and  stir- 
ring narrative,  afterward  printed  in  pamphlet  form.  Some  of  the  more  important 
facts  are  gleaned  from  it.  In  October,  1829,  on  Hacker's  Creek,  in  Lewis  County, 
an  organization  was  affected  under  the  Conventional  Articles,  Rev.  John  Mitchell 
and  David  Smith  organizing  the  first  class  in  what  is  still  called  the  old  Harmony 
church,  yet  preserved  as  the  first  built  in  that  section  (October,  1819) ,  and  in  which 
most  of  the  eminent  early  Reformers  had  preached-  It  has  been  photographed 
and  a  framed  copy  of  it  is  in  the  picture  gallery  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern. 
Rev.  H.  K.  Bonnet,  now  deceased,  was  elected  class  leader,  and  six  months  after 
the  roll  showed  sixty  names.  It  became  a  parent  society,  another  being  formed 
shortly  after  at  the  forks  of  Hacker  Creek,  and  Rev.  John  Smith  elected  leader. 
The  territory  included  in  these  two  classes  now  holds  a  membership  in  the  Church 
of  over  five  hundred.  An  organization  was  effected  in  Morgan  town  by  Rev.  Cor- 
nelius Springer,  in  the  spring  of  1830,  with  Rev.  W.  H.  Marshall  as  assistant 
preacher.  Three  prominent  ministers  came  of  this  class,  Joseph  A.  Shackelford, 
Ashy  Pool,  and  John  Clark,  the  last  a  leader  in  the  Conference  for  many  years. 
In  the  fall  of  the  same  year,  probably,  Springer  and  Marshall  formed  a  society 
at  the  forks  of  the  Cheat  River.  A  class  was  formed  at  Ball  Hill,  Green  County, 
Pa.  (within  the  West  Virginia  territory) ,  by  Rev.  George  Brown,  February,  1830. 
Societies  were  also  formed  in  Palatine  and  the  neighborhood,  where  William 
Barnes  and  J.  O.  Hartley  resided,  the  former  surviving  until  late  years ;  in  Prunty- 


256 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


sisting  of  the  original  draft  of  a  Constitution  presented  by 
the  committee  of  seven  appointed  by  the  Convention  of  1828 
for  that  purpose,  of  which  James  E..  Williams  was  chairman. 
This  venerable  and  almost  sacred  document  is  well  preserved, 
and  shows  all  the  amendments  and  additions  which  were  made 
by  the  Convention  to  the  Committee's  work;  it  is  autographi- 
cally  signed  by  twenty-nine  of  the  members  on  the  third  day 
before  the  final  adjournment.  This  signing  was  a  voluntary  act, 
and  probably  accounts  for  the  absence  of  some  important  names, 
while  others  undoubtedly  withheld  as  dissenting,  in  part,  from 
what  was  done.  The  signers  are :  Nathaniel  Gage,  Daniel  Nor- 
ton, Daniel  Bromley,  James  H.  Devor,  J.  S.  Reese,  D.  B.  Dor- 
sey,  James  B.  Williams,  John  J.  Harrod,  Gideon  Davis,  Elias 
Crutchley,  Miles  King,  W.  W.  Hill,  Willis  Harris,  John  French, 
Eppes  Tucker,  B.  A.  Blount,  Britton  Capel,  Edward  H.  Cook, 
George  Brown,  C.  Springer,  James  Foster,  B.  Burgess,  Isaac 
Webster,  Benj.  Bichardson,  Eli  Henkle,  John  Smith,  Samuel  K. 
Jennings,  Hiram  B.  Harrold.  Thus,  it  will  be  seen  that  all 
sections  of  the  country,  in  about  equal  proportion,  placed  their 
sign  manuals  to  the  instrument  in  final  approval.  The  writer 
has  also  before  him  this  original  draft,  printed  for  the  use  of 
the  Convention  before  amendment,  as  well  as  the  certified  copy 
as  made  by  order  of  the  General  Conference  of  1854  by  W.  H. 
Wills  of  North  Carolina. 

In  the  examination  of  these  documents,  you  will  be  impressed 
with  the  prayerful  deliberation  and  wise  caution  of  the  Conven- 
tion, from  the  second  to  the  twenty-third  inclusive,  of  Novem- 
ber, 1830.  One  magnetic  personality  is  absent :  Nicholas  Snethen, 
though  honored  as  a  representative  from  the  Ohio  Conference, 
within  the  bounds  of  which  he  had  recently  removed.  His  health 
was  impaired,  and  to  recross,  by  mail-coach,  the  mountains,  was 
probably  too  much  for  his  endurance.  But  the  other  leaders, 
Shinn,  Jennings,  McCaine  (late  in  the  session).  Brown,  Springer, 
French,  W.  W.  Hill,  Gideon  Davis,  James  B.  Williams,  and 
others,  were  continuously  present  through  three  sessions  a  day  for 

town,  between  the  years  1830-34,  and  has  long  been  a  power  in  that  community. 
Very  early,  in  Rockford,  a  class  was  formed.  It  is  now  almost  the  centre  of  the 
Church  work  in  that  state.  In  later  years,  at  Harrisville,  the  Morriston  neigh- 
borhood, in  Greenbrier  County,  Flat  Woods,  Braxton  County,  and  many  other 
places.  Reform  was  early  introduced  and  has  held  a  wide  influence  ever  since. 
On  Teter's  Creek,  in  Barbour  County,  Rev.  George  Nestor  organized  in  1842.  The 
centennial  sermon  embalms  the  names  of  many  of  these  worthies,  and  to  it  refer- 
ence is  made  for  fuller  particulars. 


ORIGINAL  DRAFT  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  267 


three  weeks.  William  S.  Stockton  and  his  famous  son,  Thomas 
Hewlings,  were  there.  They  were  not  all  of  one  opinion  as  to 
general  principles  and  fundamental  policy.  As  in  the  Convention 
that  formed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  1787,  there 
were  protagonists  of  centrifugalism  and  centripetalism,  so  in  this 
ecclesiastical  assembly;  and  no  criticism  will  hold  against  the 
one  for  this  reason  that  does  not  hold  equally  in  the  other,  though 
there  were  not  wanting  old  Tories  in  the  one  case  and  old  Bour- 
bons in  the  other  who  twitted  and  sneered  these  patriotic  men  on 
the  outcome  of  their  deliberations.  The  revolving  years,  how- 
ever, in  either  case  have  vindicated  the  wisdom  and  equality  of 
both  these  constitutional  instruments.  There  was  another  differ- 
ence of  mental  attitude  among  these  dissenting  Methodists :  those 
who  were  for  adhering  in  everything  compatible  with  essential 
principles  to  the  old  regime  of  Methodism,  and  those  who  were 
for  departing  as  widely  as  the  new  order  proposed  should  demand, 
without  much  regard  to  present  expediency,  as  a  factor  in  organ- 
ization. These  divergencies  made  the  final  instrument,  as  every 
other  of  the  kind,  a  compromise  of  extremes.  And  to  this  day 
it  is  impossible,  without  dogmatism,  to  settle  the  question  as  to 
the  wiser  course  in  the  light  of  experience.  Notation  shall  be 
made,  after  the  fundamentals  of  the  instrument  are  laid  before 
the  reader,  of  some  of  the  salient  differences  of  view  among  the 
representatives,  with  remarks  expressive  of  the  writer's  judgment 
in  a  retrospect  of  sixty-five  years ;  which  the  reader  may  value 
accordingly,  but  will  not  deem  superfluous  or  impertinent.  The 
following  are  the  essential  features  of  the  new  instrument;  a 
Constitution  ordained  by  the  sovereign  will  of  these  Methodist 
people  through  their  properly  constituted  representatives :  ^  — 

PREAMBLE 

We,  the  Representatives  of  the  Associated  Methodist  Churches,  in  General 
Convention  assembled,  acknowledging  the  Lord  Jesns  Christ,  as  the  only 

1  No  constitution  can  be  said  to  be  truly  representative  of  those  who  ordained 
it,  until  the  instrument  as  formulated  by  their  delegated  authority  has  been  rati- 
fied by  the  primary  assemblies  of  the  people.  Was  this  the  case  with  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  as  it  was  the  case  with  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  through  the  Legislatures  ?  The  answer  is  that,  while  the 
instrument  itself  did  not  make  provision  for  such  reference,  inasmuch  as  no 
Annual  Conferences  were  yet  recognized  as  such,  yet  the  fact  of  history  is  that 
every  Annual  Conference  afterward  organized  did  so  under  the  Constitution  by 
formal  vote  of  approval  of  its  provisions.  It  was  at  one  time  doubted  whether 
a  majority  of  them  would  so  indorse  it,  but  in  every  instance  it  proved  to  be  the 
case,  thus  securing  a  unanimous  ratification. 

VOL.  II  —  s 


258  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Head  of  the  Church,  and  the  word  of  God,  as  the  sufficient  rule  of  faith  and 
practice,  in  all  things  pertaining  to  godliness  ;  and  being  fully  persuaded  that 
the  representative  form  of  church  government  is  the  most  scriptural,  best 
suited  to  our  condition,  and  most  congenial  with  our  views  and  feelings  as 
fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God ;  and,  Whereas, 
a  written  Constitution,  establishing  the  form  of  Government,  and  securing 
to  the  Ministers  and  Members  of  the  Church  their  rights  and  privileges,  is 
the  best  safeguard  of  Christian  liberty  ;  We,  therefore,  trusting  in  the  pro- 
tection of  Almighty  God,  and  acting  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  our 
constituents,  do  ordain  and  establish,  and  agree  to  be  governed  by  the 
following  elementary  principles  and  Constitution:  — 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES 

1.  A  Christian  Church  is  a  society  of  believers  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  of 
divine  institution. 

2.  Christ  is  the  only  Head  of  the  Church  ;  and  the  word  of  God  the  only 
rule  of  faith  and  conduct. 

3.  No  person  who  loves  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  obeys  the  gospel  of 
God  our  Saviour,  ought  to  be  deprived  of  church  membership. 

4.  Every  man  has  an  inalienable  right  to  private  judgment,  in  matters  of 
religion ;  and  an  equal  right  to  express  his  opinion,  in  any  way  which  will 
not  violate  the  laws  of  God,  or  the  rights  of  his  fellow-men. 

5.  Church  trials  should  be  conducted  on  gospel  principles  only ;  and  no 
minister  or  member  should  be  excommunicated  except  for  immorality ;  the 
propagation  of  unchristian  doctrines  ;  or  for  the  neglect  of  duties  enjoined  by 
the  word  of  God. 

6.  The  pastoral  or  ministerial  office  and  duties  are  of  divine  appointment  ; 
and  all  elders  in  the  church  of  God  are  equal ;  but  ministers  are  forbidden  to 
be  lords  over  God's  heritage,  or  to  have  dominion  over  the  faith  of  the 
saints. 

7.  The  Church  has  a  right  to  form  and  enforce  such  rules  and  regulations 
only,  as  are  in  accordance  with  the  holy  scriptures,  and  may  be  necessary,  or 
have  a  tendency  to  carry  into  effect  the  great  system  of  practical  Chris- 
tianity. 

8.  Whatever  power  may  be  necessary  to  the  formation  of  rules  and  regu- 
lations, is  inherent  in  the  ministers  and  members  of  the  Church  ;  but  so  much 
of  that  power  may  be  delegated,  from  time  to  time,  upon  a  plan  of  represen- 
tation, as  they  may  judge  necessary  and  proper. 

9.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  ministers  and  members  of  the  Church  to  maintain 
godliness,  and  to  oppose  all  moral  evil. 

10.  It  is  obligatory  on  ministers  of  the  gospel  to  be  faithful  in  the  dis- 
charge of  their  pastoral  and  ministerial  duties  ;  and  it  is  also  obligatory  on 
the  members,  to  esteem  ministers  highly  for  their  works'  sake,  and  to  render 
them  a  righteous  compensation  for  their  labours. 

11.  The  Church  ought  to  secure  to  all  her  official  bodies  the  necessary 
authority  for  the  purposes  of  good  government ;  but  she  has  no  right  to 
create  any  distinct  or  independent  sovereignties. 


PBIJSrCIPLES  AND  CONSTITUTION  259 


CONSTITUTION 

Article  I 
Title 

This  Association  shall  be  denominated,  The  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  comprising  the  Associated  Methodist  Churches. 

Article  II 

Terms  of  Membership 

I.  There  is  only  one  condition  required  of  those  who  apply  for  member- 
ship in  an  Associated  Methodist  Church,  viz. :  A  desire  to  flee  from  the  wrath 
to  come,  and  be  saved  by  grace,  through  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
with  an  avowed  determination  to  walk  in  all  the  commandments  of  God 
blameless. 

But  those  who  may  continue  therein  must  give  evidence  of  this  desire  and 
determination,  by  conforming  to  such  rules  of  moral  discipline  as  the  word 
of  God  requires. 

II.  There  shall  be  a  state  of  probationary  privileges,  in  which  persons 
shall  be  held  as  candidates  for  admission  into  membership  in  this  Church, 
preparatory  to  their  being  received  into  full  membership,  by  a  compliance 
with  the  terms  thereof. 

III.  The  children  of  our  members,  and  those  under  their  guardianship, 
shall  be  recognized  as  enjoying  probationary  privileges,  and  held  as  candi- 
dates for  membership  ;  and  may  be  put  into  classes,  as  such,  with  the  consent 
of  their  parents  or  guardians. 

Article  III 
Division  into  Districts,  Circuits,  and  Stations 

I.  Those  parts  of  the  United  States  embraced  by  this  Association,  shall 
be  divided  into  districts,  having  respectively  such  boundaries  as  may  be 
agreed  on  at  this  Convention,  subject  to  those  alterations  which  may  be 
made  or  authorized,  from  time  to  time,  by  the  General  Conference. 

II.  Each  district  shall  be  divided  into  circuits  and  stations,  by  its  Annual 
Conference. 

III.  Every  minister  or  preacher,  removing  from  one  district  to  another ; 
and  eveiy  member  removing  from  one  circuit,  station,  or  church  to  another, 
having  a  certificate  of  his  or  her  good  standing,  shall  be  entitled  to  member- 
ship in  any  other  district,  circuit,  station  or  Associated  Methodist  Church 
within  the  limits  of  this  Association,  to  which  he  or  she  may  apply  for 
membership. 

Article  IV 

On  receiving  Churches,  &c. 

I.  Any  number  of  believers  united  as  a  religious  Society  or  church, 
embracing  the  principles  of  religious  truth  held  by  this  Association,  adopting 


260 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


this  Constitution,  and  conforming  to  our  book  of  discipline  and  means  of 
grace,  shall,  at  their  request,  made  to  the  president  of  an  Annual  Conference, 
or  the  superintendent  of  a  circuit  or  station,  be  recognized  as  an  Associated 
Methodist  Church,  and  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  granted  by  this  Con- 
stitution ;  subject,  however,  to  the  decision  of  the  most  adjacent  Quarterly 
Conference. 

II.  An  Associated  church  or  society  shall  be  composed  of  any  number 
of  members  residing  sufficiently  near  each  other  to  assemble  statedly  for 
public  worship,  and  to  transact  its  temporal  business.  And  every  church 
shall  be  divided,  when  it  becomes  necessary,  into  smaller  companies  or 
classes,  for  the  purposes  of  religious  instruction  and  edification. 

III.  Every  church  or  society  shall  have  power,  by  the  concurrence  of  a 
majority  of  two-thirds  of  its  qualified  male  members,  present  at  any  meeting 
called  for  the  purpose,  to  purchase,  build,  lease,  sell,  rent,  or  otherwise 
obtain  or  dispose  of  property,  for  the  mutual  benefit  of  the  church.  Each 
church  shall  also  have  power  to  admit  persons  into  full  membership  ;  and  to 
try,  censure,  or  expel  unworthy  members,  in  accordance  with  the  provisions 
of  this  Constitution,  and  the  rules  of  discipline. 

IV.  But  no  church  whatever  shall  be  continued  in  connexion  with  this 
Association,  which  does  not  conform  to  this  constitution,  and  the  regulations 
contained  in  the  book  of  discipline ;  or  which  may  hereafter  reject  any  part 
or  provision  thereof. 

Article  V 
Leaders^  Meeting 

In  every  station  there  shall  be  a  leaders'  meeting,  composed  of  all  the  class 
leaders  and  stewards  ;  the  superintendent  shall  be  chairman  of  the  meeting. 

Article  VI 
Quarterly  Conferences 

I.  There  shall  be  four  Quarterly  Conferences  in  each  circuit  and  station, 
every  conference  year,  to  be  composed  of  all  the  ministers,  preachers, 
exhorters,  stewards  and  leaders,  and  trustees,  in  full  membership,  belonging 
to  the  circuit  or  station.  Provided  that  the  superintendent  shall  have 
authority  to  call  special  meetings  of  the  quarterly  conference  at  other  times, 
when  circumstances  make  it  necessary. 

II.  Each  Quarterly  Conference  shall  be  vested  with  power  to  examine  into 
the  official  character  of  all  its  members,  and  to  admonish  or  reprove  as  occa- 
sion may  require  ;  to  grant  to  persons,  properly  qualified  and  recommended 
by  the  class  of  which  the  applicant  is  a  member,  license  to  preach  and  ex- 
hort, and  renew  their  license  annually ;  to  admit  ministers  and  preachers 
coming  from  any  Associated  church  ;  to  recommend  ministers  and  preachers 
to  the  Annual  Conference  to  travel,  and  for  ordination  ;  to  hear  and  decide 
on  appeals  ;  and  to  perform  such  other  duties  as  are  authorized  by  this  con- 
vention. Provided,  nevertheless,  that  no  person  shall  be  licensed  to  preach 
until  he  shall  have  been  first  examined,  and  recommended  by  a  committee  of 
five,  composed  of  ministers  and  laymen,  chosen  by  the  Quarterly  Conference. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  CONSTITUTION  261 


Article  VII 

Composition  and  Powers  of  the  Annual  Conferences 

I.  There  shall  be  held  annually,  within  the  limits  of  each  district,  a  Con- 
ference, to  be  denominated  the  Annual  Conference,  composed  of  all  the 
ordained  itinerant  ministers  belonging  to  the  district ;  that  is,  all  ministers 
properly  under  the  stationing  power  of  the  Conference,  and  of  one  delegate 
from  each  circuit  and  station  for  each  of  its  itinerant  ministers,  provided, 
however,  that  every  circuit  and  station  shall  have  at  least  one  delegate.  Each 
Annual  Conference  shall  regulate  the  manner  of  elections,  in  its  own  dis- 
trict ;  provided,  however,  that  the  election  of  delegates  to  the  first  Annual 
Conferences,  under  this  Constitution,  shall  be  according  to  such  regulations 
as  may  be  adopted  for  that  purpose  by  the  Quarterly  Conferences  of  the  re- 
spective circuits  and  stations. 

II.  The  Annual  Conferences,  respectively,  shall  be  vested  with  power  to 
elect  a  president,  annually  ;  to  examine  into  the  official  conduct  of  all  its 
members  ;  to  receive  by  vote,  such  ministers  and  preachers  into  the  Confer- 
ence as  come  properly  recommended,  and  who  can  be  efficiently  employed  as 
itinerant  preachers,  or  missionaries  ;  to  elect  to  orders  those  who  are  eligible 
and  competent  to  the  pastoral  office  ;  to  hear  and  decide  on  appeals  ;  to  define 
and  regulate  the  boundaries  of  circuits  and  stations  ;  to  station  the  ministers, 
preachers  and  missionaries;  and  to  perform  such  other  duties  as  may  be 
prescribed  by  this  Convention  or  the  General  Conference. 

III.  To  make  such  rules  and  regulations  as  may  be  necessary  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  itinerant  ministers,  preachers,  and  their  families ;  to  raise 
their  salaries  as  fixed  by  this  Convention  ;  and  for  all  other  purposes  con- 
nected with  the  organization  and  continuance  of  said  Conferences. 

IV.  The  Annual  Conferences,  respectively,  shall  also  have  authority  to 
perform  the  following  additional  duties  :  — 

1st.  To  make  such  special  rules  and  regulations  as  the  peculiarities  of  the 
district  may  require  ;  provided,  however,  that  no  rule  or  regulation  be  made, 
inconsistent  with  this  Constitution.  And  provided,  furthermore,  that  the 
General  Conference  shall  have  power  to  annul  any  rule  or  regulation  which 
that  body  may  deem  unconstitutional. 

2d.  To  prescribe  and  regulate  the  mode  of  stationing  the  ministers  and 
preachers  within  the  district ;  provided  always,  that  they  grant  to  each  min- 
ister or  preacher  stationed,  an  appeal,  during  the  sitting  of  the  Conference. 

3d.  Each  Annual  Conference  shall  have  exclusive  power  to  make  its  own 
rules  and  regulations  for  the  admission  and  government  of  its  colored  mem- 
bers ;  and  to  make  for  them  such  terms  of  suffrage  as  the  Conferences  re- 
spectively may  deem  proper. 

But  neither  the  General  Conference  nor  any  Annual  Conference  shall  as- 
sume powers  to  interfere  with  the  constitutional  powers  of  the  civil  govern- 
ments or  with  the  operations  of  the  civil  laws  ;  yet  nothing  herein  contained 
shall  be  so  construed  as  to  authorize  or  sanction  anything  inconsistent  with 
the  morality  of  the  holy  scriptures. 

Each  Annual  Conference  shall  keep  a  Journal  of  its  proceedings,  and  send 
a  copy  to  the  General  Conference. 


262  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Article  VIII 

Composition  of  the  General  Conference 

I.  There  shall  be  a  General  Conference  of  this  Association,  on  the  first 
Tuesday  in  May,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1834,  in  Georgetown,  District  of 
Columbia  ;  and  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  May  every  seventh  year  thereafter, 
in  such  place  as  may  be  determined  on  by  the  Conference. 

II.  The  General  Conference  shall  consist  of  an  equal  number  of  Ministers 
and  Laymen.  The  ratio  of  representation  from  each  district  shall  be  one 
minister  and  one  layman  for  every  thousand  persons  in  full  membership  ; 
provided,  however,  that  any  district  which  may  not  have  one  thousand 
members  shall  be  entitled  to  two  representatives,  one  minister  and  one 
layman,  until  a  different  ratio  shall  have  been  fixed  by  the  General  Confer- 
ence. 

III.  The  number  of  representatives  to  which  each  District  may  be 
entitled,  shall  be  elected  at  the  time,  and  place  of  holding  the  Annual  Con- 
ference of  the  district,  next  preceding  the  sitting  of  the  General  Conference, 
by  the  joint  ballot  of  an  electoral  college,  composed  of  the  itinerant  ministers 
and  delegates  belonging  to  the  Annual  Conference,  and  of  one  minister,  who 
is  not  under  the  stationing  power  of  the  Conference,  provided  there  be  such, 
from  each  circuit  and  station  within  the  limits  of  the  district.  The  minister 
thus  added  from  each  circuit  and  station  shall  be  elected  at  the  time  and 
place  of  holding  the  Quarterly  Conference,  by  the  ministers  in  his  circuit  or 
station,  not  under  the  stationing  power  of  the  Annual  Conference.  Pro- 
vided, however,  that  the  delegates  from  the  respective  circuits  and  stations, 
be  laymen ;  and  provided  also,  that  it  require  the  affirmative  vote  of  a 
majority  of  all  the  lay  delegates  present,  as  well  as  a  majority  of  the  votes 
of  all  the  ministers  present,  to  constitute  the  election  of  any  representative 
to  the  General  Conference. 

IV.  The  General  Conference  shall  elect  by  ballot,  a  president  to  preside 
over  its  deliberations ;  and  one  or  more  secretaries,  to  serve  during  the  sit- 
ting of  the  Conference  ;  shall  also  judge  of  election  returns,  and  qualifications 
of  its  own  members  and  form  its  own  rules  of  order.  A  majority  of  all  the 
representatives  in  attendance,  shall  constitute  a  quorum. 

V.  The  Ministers  and  laymen  shall  deliberate  in  one  body ;  but  if,  upon 
the  final  passage  of  any  question,  it  be  required  by  three  members,  the  Min- 
isters and  Laymen  shall  vote  separately,  and  the  concurrence  of  a  majority 
of  both  classes  of  representatives  shall  be  necessary  to  constitute  a  vote  of 
the  Conference.  —  A  similar  regulation  shall  be  observed  by  the  Annual 
Conferences. 

VI.  The  yeas  and  nays  shall  be  recorded  at  the  call  of  one-fifth  part  of 
the  members  present. 

VII.  The  Conference  shall  publish  such  parts  of  the  journal  of  its  pro- 
ceedings as  it  may  deem  requisite. 

VIII.  All  papers,  books,  &c.,  belonging  to  the  Conference,  shall  be 
preserved  as  that  body  may  direct. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  CONSTITUTION  263 


Article  IX 
Powers  of  the  General  Conference 

I.  The  General  Conference  shall  have  power  to  make  rules  and  regula- 
tions for  the  Itinerant,  Missionary,  Literary,  and  every  other  department  of 
the  Church,  recognized  by  this  Constitution. 

II.  To  fix  the  compensation  and  duties  of  the  itinerant  ministers  and 
preachers,  and  the  allowance  for  their  wives,  widows  and  children ;  and 
also,  the  compensation  and  duties  of  the  Book  Agent,  Editor,  &c.,  and  to 
devise  ways  and  means  for  raising  funds. 

III.  To  regulate,  from  time  to  time,  the  number  of  representatives  to  the 
General  Conference ;  provided,  that  the  General  Conference  shall  at  no  time 
exceed  one  hundred  members. 

IV.  To  define  and  regulate  the  boundaries  of  the  respective  Annual 
Conference  districts  ;  provided,  however,  that  the  Annual  Conferences  of  any 
two  or  more  districts,  shall  have  power,  by  mutual  agreement,  to  alter  their 
respective  adjoining  boundaries,  or  to  unite  and  become  one  district,  or  to 
set  off  a  new  district ;  to  receive  into  their  respective  limits  and  jurisdiction 
any  station  or  circuit,  which  does  not  belong  to  some  other  district ;  but 
every  alteration  made  in  the  boundaries  of  the  respective  districts  shall  be 
reported  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference. 


Article  X 

Restrictions  on  the  Legislative  Assemblies 

I.  No  rule  shall  be  passed  which  shall  contravene  any  law  of  God. 

II.  No  rule  shall  be  passed  which  shall  infringe  the  right  of  suffrage, 
eligibility  to  office,  or  the  rights  and  privileges  of  our  ministers,  preachers, 
and  members,  to  an  impartial  trial  by  committee,  and  of  an  appeal,  as 
provided  by  this  Constitution. 

III.  No  rule  shall  be  passed  infringing  on  the  liberty  of  speech,  or  of  the 
press ;  but  for  every  abuse  of  liberty,  the  offender  shall  be  dealt  with  as  in 
other  cases  of  indulging  in  sinful  words  and  tempers. 

IV.  No  rule,  except  it  be  founded  on  the  holy  scriptures,  shall  be  passed 
authorizing  the  expulsion  of  any  minister,  preacher  or  member. 

V.  No  rule  shall  be  passed  appropriating  the  funds  of  the  Church  to  any 
purpose  except  the  support  of  the  ministry,  their  wives,  widows  and  chil- 
dren ;  the  promotion  of  education,  and  Missions ;  the  diffusion  of  useful 
knowledge ;  the  necessary  expenses  consequent  on  assembling  the  Confer- 
ences, and  the  relief  of  the  poor. 

VI.  No  higher  order  of  Ministers  shall  be  authorized  than  that  of  Elder. 

VII.  No  rule  shall  be  passed  to  abolish  an  efficient  itinerant  ministry,  or 
to  authorize  the  Annual  Conferences  to  station  their  ministers  and  preachers 
longer  than  three  years,  successively,  in  the  same  circuit,  and  two  years  suc- 
cessively in  the  same  station. 

VIII.  No  change  shall  be  made  in  the  relative  proportions,  or  component 
parts  of  the  General  or  Annual  conferences. 


264 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Article  XI 
Officers  of  the  Church 

1.  The  President  of  each  Annual  Conference  shall  be  elected  annually  by 
the  ballot  of  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the  Conference.  He  shall  not  be 
eligible  more  than  three  years  in  succession  ;  and  shall  be  amenable  to  that 
body  for  his  official  conduct. 

2.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  President  of  an  Annual  Conference  to  preside 
in  aU  meetings  of  that  body  ;  to  travel  through  the  district,  and  visit  all  the 
circuits  and  stations,  and  to  be  present,  as  far  as  practicable,  at  all  the  Quar- 
terly Meetings  and  Camp  Meetings  of  his  district ;  and,  in  the  recess  of  Con- 
ference, with  the  assistance  of  two  or  more  elders,  to  ordain  those  persons 
who  may  be  elected  to  orders  ;  to  emjjloy  such  ministers,  preachers,  and 
missionaries,  as  are  duly  recommended  ;  and  to  make  such  chanires  of  preach- 
ers as  may  be  necessary,  provided,  the  consent  of  the  preachers  to  be  changed, 
be  first  obtained ;  and  to  perform  such  other  duties  as  may  be  required  by 
his  Annnal  Conference. 

3Ii7iisters 

1.  The  Minister,  who  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Annual  Conference,  to  the 
charge  of  a  station  or  circuit,  shall  be  styled  the  Superintendent,  and  shall 
be  amenable  to  the  Annual  Conference  for  his  official  conduct. 

2.  The  minister  or  preacher  appointed  by  the  Annual  Conference  to  assist 
the  superintendent  in  the  discharge  of  his  pastoral  duties,  shall  be  styled  the 
Assistant ;  and  shall  be  amenable  to  the  Annual  Conference  for  the  faithful 
discharge  of  duty. 

.3.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  minister  and  preacher  belonging  to  a  cir- 
cuit or  station,  to  render  all  the  pastoral  assistance  he  can,  consistently  with 
his  other  engagements  ;  but  no  minister  or  preacher  shall  be  accountable  to 
the  Annual  Conference  for  the  discharge  of  ministerial  duty,  except  he  be 
an  itinerant  minister  or  preacher  ;  all  others  shall  be  accountable  to  the  Quar- 
terly Conference  of  their  circuit  or  station. 

4.  Ko  person  shall  be  recognized  as  an  itinerant  minister,  preacher  or 
missionary,  whose  name  is  not  enrolled  on  the  Annual  Conference  list,  or 
who  will  not  be  subject  to  the  order  of  the  Conference. 

Class  Leaders 

The  class  leaders  may  be  elected  annually  by  the  members  of  their  re- 
spective Classes  ;  but  if,  in  any  instance,  a  class  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to 
elect  a  leader,  when  one  is  wanted,  it  shall  then  be  the  duty  of  the  superin- 
tendent to  nominate  a  class  leader  for  said  class,  and  from  the  nomination 
or  nominations  made  by  the  superintendent,  the  class  shall  make  an  election. 

Conference  Stewards 

The  Conference  steward  shall  be  elected  annually  by  the  Annual  Confer- 
ence, and  discharge  those  duties  assigned  him  by  the  discipline,  and  be  amen- 
able to  the  Annual  Conference  for  his  official  conduct. 


PRINCIPLES  AND  CONSTITUTION 


265 


Station  and  Circuit  Stewards 

1.  The  station  and  Circuit  Stewards  shall  be  elected  annually ;  in  the 
stations,  by  the  male  members,  including  ministers  and  preachers  ;  and  in 
the  Circuits,  by  the  Quarterly  Conference  ;  but  every  qualified  male  mem- 
ber, if  present,  shall  be  permitted  to  vote  in  the  elections  of  Circuit  Stewards. 
The  number  of  Stewards  for  each  Circuit  or  Station  to  be  not  less  than  three, 
nor  more  than  seven. 

Article  XII 
Suffrage  and  Eligibility  to  office 

I.  Every  Minister  and  Preacher,  and  every  white,  lay,  male  Member,  in 
full  communion  and  fellowship,  having  attained  to  the  age  of  twenty-one 
years,  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  in  all  cases. 

II.  Every  Minister  and  Preacher,  and  every  white,  lay,  male  Member,  in 
full  communion  and  fellowship,  having  attained  to  the  age  of  twenty-five 
years,  and  having  been  in  full  membership  two  years,  shall  be  eligible  as  a 
representative  to  the  General  Conference. 

III.  No  person  shall  be  eligible  as  a  delegate  to  the  Annual  Conference, 
or  as  a  steward,  until  he  shall  have  attained  to  the  age  of  twenty-one  years, 
and  who  is  not  a  regular  communicant  of  this  Church. 

IV.  No  Minister  shall  be  eligible  to  the  office  of  President  of  an  Annual 
Conference,  until  he  shall  have  faithfully  exercised  the  office  of  elder  two 
years. 

Article  XIII 

Judiciary  Principles 

I.  All  offences  condemned  by  the  word  of  God,  as  being  sufficient  to 
exclude  a  person  from  the  kingdom  of  grace  and  glory,  shall  subject  Minis- 
ters, Preachers  and  Members,  to  expulsion  from  the  Church. 

II.  The  neglect  of  duties  required  by  the  word  of  God,  or  the  indulgence 
in  sinful  words  and  tempers,  shall  subject  the  offender  to  admonition ;  and 
if  persisted  in,  after  repeated  admonitions,  to  expulsion. 

III.  Eor  preaching  or  disseminating  unscriptural  doctrines  affecting  the 
essential  interests  of  the  Christian  system.  Ministers,  Preachers,  and  Mem- 
bers shall  be  liable  to  admonition ;  and,  if  incorrigible,  to  expulsion  :  Pro- 
vided, always,  that  no  Minister,  Preacher  or  Member,  shall  be  expelled  for 
disseminating  matters  of  opinion  alone,  except  they  be  such  as  are  condemned 
by  the  word  of  God. 

IV.  All  officers  of  the  Church  shall  be  liable  to  removal  from  office,  for 
mal-administration. 

Article  XIV 

Privileges  of  accused  Ministers  and  Members 

I.  In  all  cases  of  accusation  against  a  Minister,  Preacher,  or  Member, 
the  accused  shall  be  furnished  by  the  proper  authorities,  with  a  copy  of  the 
charges  and  specifications,  at  least  twenty  days  before  the  time  appointed 
for  the  trial ;  unless  the  parties  concerned  prefer  going  into  trial  on  shorter 


266 


niSTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


notice.  The  accused  shall  have  the  right  of  challenge  ;  the  privilege  of 
examining  witnesses  at  the  time  of  trial  ;  and  of  making  his  defence  in  per- 
son or  by  representative  ;  provided  such  representative  be  a  member  of  the 
Church. 

II.  No  Minister  or  Preacher,  shall  be  expelled,  or  deprived  of  Church 
privileges,  or  ministerial  functions,  without  an  impartial  trial  before  a  com- 
mittee, of  from  three  to  five  ministers  or  preachers,  and  the  right  of  appeal ; 
the  preachers  to  the  ensuing  Quarterly  Conference ;  the  ministers  to  the 
ensuing  Annual  Conference. 

III.  No  Member  shall  be  expelled  or  deprived  of  church  privileges,  with- 
out an  impartial  trial  before  a  Committee  of  three  or  more  lay  members,  or 
before  the  Society  of  which  he  is  a  member,  as  the  accused  may  require, 
and  the  right  of  an  appeal  to  the  ensuing  Quarterly  Conference ;  but  no 
Committee  man  who  shall  have  sat  on  the  first  trial,  shall  sit  on  the  appeal ; 
and  all  appeals  shall  be  final. 

Article  XV 

Discipline  Judiciary 

I.  Whenever  a  majority  of  all  the  Annual  Conferences  shall  ofiBcially  call 
for  a  judicial  decision  on  any  rule  or  act  of  the  General  Conference,  it  shall 
be  the  duty  of  each  and  every  Annual  Conference  to  appoint  at  its  next  ses- 
sion, one  Judicial  delegate,  having  the  same  qualifications  of  eligibility  as 
are  required  for  a  representative  to  the  General  Conference.  The  delegates 
thus  chosen,  shall  assemble  at  the  place  where  the  General  Conference  held 
its  last  session,  on  the  second  Tuesday  in  May  following  their  appointment. 

II.  A  majority  of  the  delegates  shall  constitute  a  quorum ;  and  if  two- 
thirds  of  all  present,  judge  said  rule  or  act  of  the  General  Conference  uncon- 
stitutional, they  shall  have  power  to  declare  the  same  null  and  void. 

III.  Every  decision  of  the  Judiciary  shall  be  in  writing,  and  shall  be  pub- 
lished in  the  periodical  belonging  to  this  Church.  After  the  Judiciary  shall 
have  performed  the  duties  assigned  them  by  this  Constitution,  their  powers 
shall  cease  ;  and  no  other  judiciary  shall  be  created  until  after  the  session  of 
the  succeeding  General  Conference. 

Article  XVI 
Special  Call  of  the  General  Conference 

I.  Two-thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  the  Annual  Conferences  shall  have 
power  to  call  special  meetings  of  the  General  Conference. 

II.  When  it  shall  have  been  ascertained,  that  two-thirds  of  the  Annual 
Conferences  have  decided  in  favour  of  such  call,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the 
Presidents,  or  a  majority  of  them,  forthwith,  to  designate  the  time  and  place 
of  holding  the  same,  and  to  give  due  notice  to  all  the  stations  and  circuits. 

Article  XVII 

Provision  for  altering  the  Constitution 

I.  The  General  Conference  shall  have  power  to  amend  any  part  of  this 
Constitution,  except  the  second,  tenth  and  fourteenth  articles,  by  making 


OTHER  DRAFTS  CONSIDERED 


267 


such  alterations  or  additions,  as  may  be  recommended  in  writing,  by  two- 
thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  the  Annual  Conferences  next  preceding  the 
sitting  of  the  General  Conference. 

II.  The  second,  tenth  and  fourteenth  articles  of  this  Constitution  shall  be 
unalterable,  except  by  a  General  Convention,  called  for  the  special  purpose, 
by  two-thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  the  Annual  Conferences  next  preceding 
the  General  Conference.  Which  Convention,  and  all  other  Conventions  of 
this  Church,  shall  be  constituted  and  elected  in  the  same  manner  and  ratio, 
as  prescribed  for  the  General  Conference.  When  a  General  Convention  is 
called  by  the  Annual  Conferences,  it  shall  supersede  the  assembling  of  the 
General  Conference  for  that  period  ;  and  shall  have  power  to  discharge  all 
the  duties  of  that  body,  in  addition  to  the  particular  object  for  which  the 
Convention  shall  have  been  assembled. 


Besolved,  That  the  Judiciary  tribunal  provided  for  by  the  15th  article  of 
the  Constitution  of  this  Church,  shall  publish  as  well  the  reasons  of  their 
opinion  upon  the  part  or  provision  of  the  Constitution  supposed  to  have 
been  contravened  by  the  law,  or  laws,  provision  or  provisions,  considered  to 
be  unconstitutional,  together  with  their  decision. 

Whei'eas,  It  is  declared  by  this  Convention,  that  whatever  power  may  be 
necessary  to  the  formation  of  rules  and  regulations,  is  inherent  in  the  min- 
isters and  members  of  the  Church  ;  and  that  so  much  of  that  power  may  be 
delegated  from  time  to  time,  upon  a  plan  of  representation  as  they  may 
judge  proper  ;  therefore.  Resolved,  that  all  power  not  delegated  to  the  respec- 
tive official  bodies  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  by  this  Convention, 
are  retained  to  said  ministers  and  members. 

Baltimore,  Nov.  20,  1830. 

William  S.  Stockton  had  prepared  and  presented  a  draft  of  a 
Constitution,  which  Williams  has  preserved  bound  up  vs^ith  the 
original  draft  finally  adopted,  and  as  a  substitute  for  it.  It  ex- 
hibits the  centrifugal  sentiments  of  the  author,  and  also  largely- 
represented  the  views  of  Snethen  and  others  who  stood  for  the 
wider  liberty  of  societies,  annual  conferences,  and  against  re- 
strictive regulations  of  almost  every  kind.  The  instrument  is 
one  of  much  intrinsic  worth  and  ability.  Gideon  Davis  also  pre- 
sented parts  of  an  instrument,  and  others  made  fundamental  sug- 
gestions. All  the  papers  were  referred  to  a  committee  of  twelve, 
one  from  each  Conference  in  the  Convention,  who  reported  back, 
that  they  recommend  the  draft  of  the  committee  of  the  Conven- 
tion of  1828,  to  be  made  the  basis  of  legislation.  This  draft, 
as  can  be  seen,  exhibited  the  centripetal  sentiment  of  Shinn, 
McCaine,  and  Williams,  with  the  quiet  but  influential  support 
of  Dr.  Francis  Waters.  It  is  in  the  chirography  of  Williams,  the 
chairman  of  the  committee,  and  his  sober  and  judicious  views 


268 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


dominated  a  majority  of  the  Convention.  Its  order  is  followed, 
and  but  few  essential  modifications  were  made  in  it.  The  same 
committee  formulated  a  Discipline  to  accord  with  their  constitu- 
tional work,  but  it  need  not  be  considered  in  this  History.^  It 
was  more  radically  dissected  by  the  Convention  before  adoption. 

While  it  might  be  historically  interesting  to  give  conventional 
details,  the  limits  of  this  work  forbid;  but  some  things  ought  not 
to  pass  into  oblivion.  Dr.  John  French,  from  the  numerous  times 
he  was  called  to  the  chair  in  the  absence  of  the  President,  as  well 
as  the  sedate  but  prevailing  part  he  took  in  the  proceedings,  re- 
ceived high  compliment  from  his  associates.  Dr.  Jennings  was 
of  the  original  committee,  and  being  resident  in  Baltimore  with 
Williams,  his  vigorous  pen  cannot  be  concealed  in  the  composition 
of  the  draft.  Dr.  Pinney  made  the  motion  adopting  "  Elementary 
Principles^'  as  a  title  instead  of  "Bill  of  Eights."  These  prin- 
ciples are  plain  to-day,  except,  perhaps,  the  eleventh,  deemed 
one  of  the  most  essential  at  the  time  as  a  precaution  against 
legislative  assumptions,  which  was  its  intent,  so  little  used  were 
even  these  brethren  to  the  safeguards  of  a  Constitution.  They 
could  not  forget  the  arrogations  of  the  past,  when  bishops  made 
laws, —  "independent  sovereignties,"  —  and  then  had  them  rati- 
fied by  subservient  Conferences.  Gideon  Davis  thought  the 
wording  obscure,  if  not  misleading,  and  moved  to  substitute 
" sovereignties  "  with  "  authorities,"  but  it  did  not  prevail.^  The 
style  and  title  of  the  Church  has  the  history  that  W.  W.  Wallace 
moved  it  be  denominated  "The  Reformed  Methodist  Church." 
Subsequently  Asa  Shinn  moved  that  it  be  "The  Representa- 

1  "Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  Balti- 
more: published  for  the  Book  Committee  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  by- 
John  J.  Harrod,  Book  Agent  of  the  M.  P.  Church.  William  Woody,  printer,  1830. 
24mo.    160  pp.    Half  sheep. 

The  inquiring  reader  can  get  access  to  this  book  for  all  the  details  of  the  con- 
ventional action.  It  also  contains  the  address  ordered  by  the  Convention  to  the 
Ministers  and  Members,  understood  to  be  from  the  graceful  pen  of  Dr.  Francis 
Waters,  and  appended  to  the  "Discipline"  for  many  years  thereafter.  The 
"Discipline  for  18134"  also  contains,  as  an  appendix,  Bascom's  "Summary  of 
Rights." 

2  The  meaning  of  the  article  will  be  made  plain  with  the  statement  that  any 
act  of  an  Annual  Conference  in  contravention  of  the  Constitution,  or  an  act  of 
the  General  Conference  or  of  a  Quarterly  Conference  in  coutravention  of  the 
Annual  Conference,  etc.,  would  be  violative  of  the  article.  Ideally  and  practi- 
cally it  is  the  strongest  connectional  bond  in  the  Constitution,  and  has  often,  in  cur- 
rent history,  been  employed  to  arrest  incipient  revolution.  While  "  Associated 
Churches,"  they  are  also  "  The  Methodist  Protestant  Church,"  and  under  its  con- 
stitution there  has  been  as  little  friction  and  loss  as  perhaps  under  any  similar 
instrument  ever  adopted  by  Church  or  State. 


SNETHEN  ON  ''CHURCH  VS.  CHURCHES''  269 


tive  Methodist  Church,  comprising  the  Associated  Methodist 
Churches."  W.  S.  Stockton's  draft  had  proposed  "The  Asso- 
ciated Methodist  Churches,"  and  so  the  committee,  in  accordance 
with  Snethen's  favorite  idea.  While  the  question  was  under  dis- 
cussion in  the  Convention,  Dr.  Waters  left  the  chair  and  advocated 
the  title  "The  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  On  motion  of 
Charles  Avery  the  word  Protestant  was  substituted  for  Repre- 
sentative, and  carried  without  opposition.  Dr.  Waters  late  in 
life  asserted  that  he  proposed  the  word  Protestant  in  its  broad 
ecclesiastical  sense. 

The  implications  of  this  decision  merit  space  for  historical 
preservation.  Snethen  in  nothing  more  conspicuously  exhibited 
his  far-reaching  as  well  as  retrospective  philosophy,  and  accurate 
knowledge  of  New  Testament  principles  and  precedents,  than  in 
his  pronounced  objection  to  a  "  Church  "  in  the  sense  indivisible,  ' 
as  set  over  against  "  churches  "  in  the  sense  confederate.  As 
early  as  1822-23,  before  a  new  Church  was  conceived  of  as  a  pos- 
sibility of  Reform  measures  within  the  extant  Methodism,  he 
averred:  "Almost  all  the  conclusions  which  were  thus  forced 
upon  me  by  this  New  Testament  research  were  then  like  so  many 
original  discoveries,  especially  the  following;  viz.,  that  the  primi- 
tive churches  were  confederate  and  not  indivisible,  like  the  modern 
episcopal  hierarchies.  This  conclusion  you  will  perceive  could 
not  have  been  admitted  by  me,  had  not  my  mind  been  so  far 
unfettered  as  to  call  no  man  master.  In  all  these  points  I  may 
be  mistaken;  but  if  I  am  not,  the  consequence  is  unavoidable, 
and  ought  to  alarm  our  church  hierarchy  men  exceedingly."  And 
he  wrought  out  the  idea  in  the  modification  he  proposed  of  the 
old  regime :  "  The  first  thing,  then,  that  would  probably  result 
from  a  lay-delegation,  would  be  the  establishment  and  security 
of  individual  church  identity ;  the  second  step  would  be  to  main- 
tain and  perpetuate  a  confederate  union  among  these  identified 
churches ;  and  a  third  a  modification  and  accommodation  of  the 
travelling  plan,  bishops'  power,  etc.,  to  this  state  of  things  upon 
a  basis  of  ministerial  identity,  so  that  every  preacher  might  say 
that  his  soul  was  his  own.  All  this  it  is  evident  would  be  a  work 
of  time  and  great  labor.  In  such  an  event  no  General  Conference 
must  attempt  to  limit  its  successors ;  .  .  .  the  only  insurmount- 
able difficulty  would  be  the  name,  for  'Episcopal  Church,'  not 
churches,  under  all  changes;  .  .  .  this  badge  of  our  original  sin, 
like  our  mortal  bodies,  can  only  be  put  off  with  our  death.  From 
the  beginning  we  ought  to  have  been  confederated  churches,  and 


270  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


our  name  ought  to  have  answered  to  our  nature."  Recurring  to 
apostolical  times,  he  said:  "Why  this  difference  between  the 
apostles  and  our  system-makers,  who  not  only  fill  out  their  plan 
to  the  utmost  minutiae,  but  so  provide  against  all  changes  and 
improvements  as  to  render  everything  from  a  thread  to  a  shoe- 
latchet  immutable?  Was  there  not  as  great  a  danger  of  latitudi- 
narianism  and  innovation  in  the  days  of  the  apostles  as  now? 
Why  then,  I  ask  again,  did  they  preserve  such  a  seeming  guarded 
silence  upon  the  details  of  Church  government?  Was  it  not  be- 
cause they  looked  forward  to  consequences,  and  foresaw  that  no 
model  could  be  given  which  would  not  be  susceptible  of  abuse  or 
perversion?  "  A  half  a  century  later  Rev.  Dr.  Augustus  Webster, 
with  much  of  the  same  wisdom,  gave  to  the  writer  in  conversation 
another  reason  for  the  absence  of  a  p?a7i  in  the  New  Testament 
church  polity.  He  said  in  substance :  "  The  early  Christians  had 
no  need  to  be  governed,  because  the  law  of  love  by  which  they 
were  controlled  made  every  man  a  law  unto  himself.  It  was 
only  as  this  law  of  love  died  out  of  their  hearts  that  a  system 
making  for  control  was  introduced,  and  the  hierarchy  grew  apace." 
Could  anything  be  more  true  and  apposite?  To  the  same  purpose 
Snethen,  in  1825,  wrote:  ''When  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ascended 
into  heaven,  he  sent  the  Comforter,  the  spirit  of  truth,  to  supply 
the  place  of  his  personal  presence ;  but  left  no  one  of  his  disciples 
to  occupy  his  place  and  to  govern  the  rest.  All  his  offices  are 
perpetual  and  unchangeable,  and  of  course  cannot  be  held  or  rep- 
resented in  this  world  by  a  succession  of  mortal  men.  To  keep 
up  a  succession  of  mortal  heads  over  the  church,  a  spirit  of  fear 
must  be  kept  up  in  the  church.  Why  these  names,  these  titles, 
these  offices,  these  powers  and  prerogatives?  Not  surely  to 
inspire  love,  but  fear." 

It  is  the  difference  between  the  rule  of  Christ  in  his  churches 
and  the  rule  of  Ecclesiasticism.  Eccelesiasticism  had  its  birth 
with  the  first  aggregation  of  force  as  a  supplement  to  love  for 
controlling  Christian  men,  and  to  control  Christian  men  is  the 
confessed  purpose  of  the  Church  as  it  cr^'stallized  in  Rome,  and 
in  every  outshoot  of  it.  The  clear  vision  of  Snethen  took  it  all 
in,  and  for  this  almost  divine  reason  his  preference  was  not  to 
add  another  "  Church  "  to  the  aggregations  of  force  in  the  denomi- 
nationalisms  called  Christian.  Force  cannot  be  made  an  auxiliary 
to  love  and  not  be  liable  to  abuse ;  and  ecclesiastical  history  from 
the  coming  of  anti-christ  at  the  close  of  the  apostolic  age  is  a 
succession  of  evidence  that  in  every  instance  it  was  abused,  and 


CONFEDERATION  VS.  CONNECTIONALISM  271 


is  abused  to  the  present  day.  At  least  in  this  every  one  must 
agree  with  the  astute  Snetlien  in  a  final  word  upon  the  subject : 
"  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  not  a  few  of  the  Protestants,  and 
of  the  denominations  which  have  sprung  from  the  Protestants, 
have  shown  so  great  a  propensity  to  make  the  power  of  ministers 
of  the  gospel  to  govern  the  Church,  that  is,  legislate  its  laws,  as 
well  as  execute  them,  a  foundation  truth." 

The  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  gave  heed  to  this  warning  of  Snethen,  but  were  not  con- 
trolled by  it.  Confederation  was  accepted  as  the  true  bond,  but 
it  was  incorporated  with  features  of  Connectionalism  in  the  con- 
viction that  indivisibility  could  only  be  preserved  that  way.  It 
was  a  compromise,  in  some  things,  perhaps,  for  the  highest 
efficiency  and  provision  for  the  demands  of  a  future,  conceding 
too  much,  and  in  some  others  conceding  not  enough  in  view  of 
the  same  demands.  Even  Snethen,  however,  came  to  acknowl- 
edge that  it  was  as  near  an  approach  to  the  New  Testament  model 
as  was  possible,  in  that  nearly  ten  years  later,  when  the  experi- 
ment of  a  new  Church  was  a  demonstrated  success,  he  wrote  "  The 
Identifier,"^  in  which  the  comparison  of  its  principles  is  success- 
fully run  with  the  apostolic  methods  and  principles.  Glancing 
over  it  as  my  pen  flows,  it  is  found  rich  in  check-marks  for  quo- 
tation in  this  work,  but  space  forbids.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  is 
a  mellow  and  powerful  vindication  both  of  his  own  views  and  of 
the  new  Methodism.  Eead  it  and  observe  how  much  wiser  he 
was  in  his  generation  than  the  leaders  of  either  the  old  or  the 
new  regime. 

Protestant  denominationalism  in  every  form  of  it,  as  hinted, 
is  simply  an  aggregation  of  force,  and  its  kinship  with  the  Eomish 
hierarchy  is  in  the  ratio  of  unlimited  prescriptive  right  of  the 
clergy  to  rule ;  and  while,  as  such  a  force,  it  may  be  used  to  sup- 
plement and  potentialize  the  law  of  love  of  the  primitive  churches, 

1  "  The  Identifier  of  the  Ministers  and  Members  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,"  by  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen.  Philadelphia:  Printed  for  Book  Committee 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  1839.  12mo.  107  pp.  Cloth.  Price,  75  cents. 

The  writer  possesses  two  well-preserved  copies,  but  the  work  is  now  rare.  It 
is  worthy  of  republication  by  the  Church  as  a  mine  of  ecclesiastical  wisdom. 
Those  who  would  understand  the  philosophy  of  the  Methodist  Reformation  will 
not  fail  to  consult  it.  While  Asa  Shinn  was  incomparably  the  dialectician  of  it, 
Nicholas  Snethen  was  its  bright  particular  star  of  intellectual  cleverness  and  phi- 
losophy. It  won  for  him  the  designation  of  a  theorist  by  such  matter-of-fact 
minds  as  Williams  and  McCaine,  but  while  they  were  men  for  the  times,  Snethen 
was  a  man  for  all  times,  so  broad  was  the  sweep  of  his  mental  horizon  and  so 
horoscopic  his  seer-like  wisdom. 


272 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  trend  of  its  practical  working  is  dominion  over  conscience 
and  the  proscription  of  personal  liberty.  And  in  the  measure  of 
this  aggregation  of  force  is  the  numerical  and  material  success  of 
a  denomination,  but  it  is  gained  by  a  necessary  departure  from 
the  law  of  love  as  the  only  evangelistical  force  recognized  by 
Christ  as  dominating  his  earthly  kingdom.  The  ready  answer 
of  those  who  participate  in  hierarchic  administration  is  that  any 
other  method  in  its  ideal  is  visionary,  Utopian,  as  a  working 
hypothesis,  that  is,  it  cannot  be  made  to  control  men.  The 
proposition  is  denied  as  applied  to  Christian  men,  and  it  libels 
the  Christly  postulate:  "One  is  your  Master,  even  Christ,  and 
all  ye  are  brethren,"  as  well  as  the  precedents  and  methods  of 
the  first-century  Christians  so  as  to  deny  the  potency  of  love  as 
the  essence  of  law.  The  very  tap-root  of  ecclesiasticism  is  the 
dominion  of  force.  It  was  and  is  against  this  principle  that  the 
New  Methodism  stood  and  now  stands  as  a  Protest.  Its  method 
is  unhesitatingly  declared  a  success  as  the  nearest  approach  yet 
made  to  the  New  Testament  ideal  of  this  law  of  love,  and  it  is 
the  objective  of  this  History  to  demonstrate  this  success.  The 
nature  of  its  ideal,  its  shortcomings,  while  endeavoring  to  con- 
serve a  connectional  form  as  well,  must  be  delayed  for  treat:nent 
to  a  more  apposite  period  in  its  ecclesiastical  career.^ 

1  Ho"w  pointedly  are  these  general  views  enforced  and  illustrated  by  the  author- 
ities following.  Wesley  in  his  Notes,  commenting  on  Acts  ii.  45,  says:  "  It  was  a 
natural  fruit  of  that  love  wherewith  each  member  of  the  community  loved  every 
other  as  his  own  soul.  And  if  the  whole  Christian  church  had  continued  in  this 
spirit,  this  usage  must  have  continued  through  all  ages.  To  affirm,  therefore, 
that  Christ  did  not  design  it  should  continue  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  to  affirm 
that  Christ  did  not  design  this  measure  of  love  should  continue.  I  see  no  evidence 
of  this."  And  the  great  modern  apostle  of  ci^il  reform  on  Christian  principles, 
Rev.  Dr  Parkhurst  of  New  York  City,  speaking  of  this  primitive  law  of  love  as 
the  basic  principle  of  government  in  the  apostolical  church  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  law  of  denominationalism,  pertinently  says:  "  The  instant  a  Christian 
ceases  to  become  bound  up  in  his  Divine  Lord  his  regards  begin  to  settle  back  in  the 
channel  of  his  own  individual  proclivities ;  and  that  is  the  genius  of  denomination- 
alism. Denominationalism  is  made  up,  not  of  the  essence,  but  of  the  accidents 
of  Christianity,  A  denomination  is  another  name  for  some  strand  of  personal 
eccentricity  selected  from  each  of  a  number  of  counterparts  and  tied  up  into  one 
bundle.  .  .  .  This  makes  the  Protestant  Episcopal,  the  Methodist  Episcopal,  the 
Presbyterian,  the  Baptist,  and  other  denominations.  ...  It  is  the  genius  of  the 
entire  performance  then  and  always.''  But  we  must  have  a  strong  government 
or  you  cannot  control  men,  says  the  hierarchist.  True,  when  Christians  cease 
to  be  amenable  to  the  law  of  love,  then  they  must  be  controlled  by  force ;  but  the 
moment  this  is  made  a  factor  they  cease  to  be  Christians,  and  are  mere  partisans, 
bigots,  Romanists,  or  Episcopalians,  and  what  not.  So  if  you  want  a  strong  con- 
trol of  men.  not  as  Christians  but  as  men,  a  follcwiug  under  the  slogan  call  of  a 
denomination,  nowhere  is  the  ideal  so  perfect  as  in  Romish  or  other  Episcopal 


HISTORY  OF  CERTAIN  ''ARTICLES'' 


273 


Article  VII.  was  wrought  out  in  much  mental  travail.  While 
the  sixth  Elementary  Principle  was  made  to  declare  that  "all 
elders  in  the  Church  of  God  are  equal,"  the  sober  sense  of  the 
Convention  restricted  membership  in  the  Annual  Conference  to 
itinerant  ministers  and  preachers  under  the  stationing  authority 
of  it,  thus  sweeping  away  a  favorite  contention  of  the  locality, 
which,  if  it  had  never  been  sprung  in  the  controversy,  would 
have  secured  the  continued  cooperation  of  Ezekiel  Cooper,  and 
the  strong  Philadelphia  Conference  backing  he  carried  with  him, 
for  Reform.  The  contention  was  one  of  the  misadventures  of 
early  Reform.  Pertinaciously  adhered  to  until  much  damage  was 
wrought  to  the  common  cause,  it  was  swept  away  by  returning  rea- 
son, but  too  late  to  repair  that  damage.  And  while  it  was  also 
declared  in  Section  6th  of  Article  X.,  that  "No  higher  order  of 
ministers  shall  be  authorized  than  that  of  elder,"  as  a  protection 
against  a  bishopric  in  the  ascending  grade  of  a  hierarchy,  they 
overlooked  entirely  the  descending  grade,  and  by  sufferance  con- 
tinued a  diaconate  as  an  order  of  the  ministry,  though  it  was 
manifestly  an  invention  of  the  hierarchy.  Some  forty  years  later 
this  inconsistency  was  remedied  by  expunging  the  order  from  the 
Discipline  and  ordination  service.-^ 

forms  of  polity.  And  never  were  truer  words  than  those  recently  uttered  by  the 
Church  Standard  anent  the  union  its  Church  is  urging  on  the  basis  of  the  His- 
toric Episcopate,  and  other  Methodisms  may  take  warning  in  the  application 
made  by  it :  "  The  very  form  of  an  episcopate,  even  though  it  be  not  the  Historic 
Episcopate,  has  a  marvellously  uniting  power.  Thus  in  the  American  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  there  is  a  unity  almost  unknown  in  any  other  denomination,  and 
strange  to  Gay  there  is  an  intensity  of  denominational  individuality  which  makes 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  the  least  likely  of  all  American  Christian  bodies 
to  entertain  any  overtures  whatever  looking  towards  a  union  with  any  other 
body."  Hence  its  recent  opposition  officially  declared  against  the  Christian 
Endeavor  Society  as  an  inter-denominational  organization  within  the  respective 
churches  and  loyal  to  each  church.  Its  young  people  must  be  organized  on 
an  exclusively  denominational  basis,  which  means  in  fact  by  this  confession: 
that  they  must  be  taught  to  be  Methodists  even  more  than  to  be  Christians. 
What  then  must  be  the  meaning  of  all  their  professed  offers  of  union  with  other 
Methodisms,  even  that  of  the  Methodist  Church,  North  to  that  of  the  South?  It 
never  has  had,  and  never  will  have,  as  officially  understood  by  that  Church,  any 
other  meaning  than  a  willingness  to  absorb  any  and  all  coming  within  its  influence. 
It  is  an  anaconda  that  swallows  everything,  but  never  disgorges  anything.  Union ! 
The  very  genius  of  the  system  forbids  it  with  any  other  form  of  Christianity,  even 
the  kindred  Methodist  branches,  and  they  are  not  wise  who  are  deceived  by  the 
cry  of  Union ! 

1  From  the  beginning  of  Wesley's  ordinations  in  England,  except  the  '*  setting 
apart "  of  Mather  for  Scotland  as  a  "  superintendent  "  (no  conception  of  a  bishop- 
ric entering  his  mind  by  the  act,  or  a  third  order) ,  and  jealously  conserved  to  this 
day  in  all  the  branches  of  English  Methodism,  there  is  but  one  order.  Elders.  That 
he  never  intended  a  third  order  in  America  by  anything  he  did  as  "  setting  apart " 

VOL.  II — T 


274  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


In  nothing  was  the  compromising  trend  of  the  Convention  ex- 
hibited more  than  in  the  third  section  of  Article  VII.,  under  con- 
sideration. "  Each  Annual  Conference  shall  have  exclusive  power 
to  make  its  own  rules  and  regulations  for  the  admission  of  colored 
members  within  its  district,  and  to  make  for  them  such  terms  of 
suffrage  as  the  Conferences  respectively  may  deem  proper."  It 
was  a  concession  from  the  South  to  the  North  on  the  vexed 
question  of  slavery.  "  But  neither  the  General  Conference  nor 
any  Annual  Conference  shall  assume  power  to  interfere  with  the 
constitutional  powers  of  the  civil  government,  or  with  the  opera- 
tions of  the  civil  laws."  This  was  a  concession  of  the  North  to 
the  South;  even  such  antislavery  representatives  as  Judge  P.  B. 
Hopper  of  Maryland,  who  had  given  proof  of  his  sentiments  by 
manumitting  some  forty  slaves,  nearly  his  entire  patrimony  by 
inheritance,  recognized  a  judicial  necessity  for  some  such  action. 
It  was  finally  carried  by  a  vote  of  forty-eight  to  sixteen,  W.  S. 
Stockton  securing  this  addition  to  the  section:  "Yet  nothing 
herein  contained  shall  be  so  construed  as  to  authorize  or  sanction 
anything  inconsistent  with  the  morality  of  the^Holy  Scriptures." 
It  secured  for  the  whole  section  a  number  of  votes  from  anti- 
slavery  representatives  besides  Judge  Hopper.  But  for  its  impli- 
cations of  slavery  no  one,  perhaps,  would  have  made  opposition 
to  it,  and  since  the  issue  passed  away  it  has  remained  in  the  Con- 
stitution as  legislation  defining  separation  of  the  Church  and 
State. 

Article  VII.  made  the  General  Conference  meet  in  1834  and 
"every  seventh  year  thereafter."  It  was  favored  by  Shinn  and 
others,  but  after  that  of  1834  he  grew  so  thoroughly  changed  in 
opinion  that  his  efforts  secured  concurrence  of  two-thirds  of  the 
Annual  Conferences,  and  the  ensuing  General  Conference  met  in 
1838.    The  seventh  Restriction  of  Article  X.,  on  the  Itinerancy, 

Dr.  Coke  as  a  superintendent  (he  averred  that  he  did  nothing  more  in  that  case 
than  in  the  Mather  case)  is  so  plain  from  the  cumulation  of  proofs  contained 
in  this  History  as  to  place  it  past  controversion  by  honest  Methodists ;  and  yet, 
if  we  may  believe  Dr.  Coke,  he  sent  over  with  the  abridged  prayer  book  for  the 
use  of  the  American  Methodists,  intending  only  by  the  enjoiument  of  this  Ritual 
to  assert  his  own  headship  and  authority  over  them,  as  an  appendix  the  forms  of  a 
three-order  ordination  as  it  obtained  in  the  Established  Church  of  England.  While 
there  is  no  extant  evidence  on  either  side,  it  is  reasonably  conjectural  that  not 
Wesley,  but  Dr.  Coke,  appended  the  ordination  forms  to  the  abridged  prayer  book 
of  1784.  It  is  at  least  compatible  with  Dr.  Coke's  well-known  preferences  for  an 
Episcopal  form  of  government.  That  he  was  capable  of  such  an  addition  is  clear 
from  his  whole  procedure  with  Asbury  in  organizing  an  Episcopal  Church.  It  also 
redeems  Wesley  from  au  inconsistency  which  cannot  otherwise  be  removed. 


ARTICLE  XII.  ON  SUFFRAGE 


275 


filled  the  term  in  stations  at  two  years,  on  motion  of  McCaine, 
and  two  on  circuits,  but  already  this  hard-and-fast  feature  had 
its  opponents,  and  they  prevailed  finally  so  as  to  insert  three  for 
two  on  circuits.  It  was  one  of  the  things  of  which  Snetlien  said 
in  his  "  Identifier " :  "  To  be  like  the  old  Church  in  means  and 
ends,  whether  we  could  or  not,  has  engrossed  our  genius  and  our 
energy.  Undoubtedly  a  less  rigid  rule  would  have  been  used  to 
the  damage  of  the  new  Church  by  their  well-wishing  friends  of 
the  old.  It  was  the  fear  of  it  that  tied  the  hands  of  the  new- 
born child.  The  light  of  experience  has  shown  that  it  was  an 
error  to  make  the  regulation  unalterable  except  by  a  majority  of 
two-thirds  of  all  the  Annual  Conferences.  It  resulted  practically 
in  its  unavoidable  evasion  in  some  of  the  outlying  Conferences, 
and  of  not  a  little  local  damage  in  Maryland  and  elsewhere  before 
stubborn  resistance  to  any  innovation  could  be  overcome  and  the 
present  flexible  law  of  the  Church  took  its  place.  The  older 
Methodism,  still  slower  in  ponderous  and  restricting  machinery, 
has  extended  the  time  to  five  years,  and  the  end  is  not  yet. 

Article  XII.,  on  Suffrage  and  Eligibility  to  Office,  was  framed 
to  read,  "Every  minister  and  every  preacher  and  every  white 
lay-member  .  .  .  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  in  all  cases,"  and  the 
same  form  repeated  as  to  eligibility  to  "General  Conference." 
It  was  a  narrow  ethnic  enactment.  It  must,  however,  be  con- 
ceded as  historically  true  that  it  was  not  aimed  at  the  colored 
man,  only  as  it  was  originally  suggested  by  the  conduct  of  Pre- 
siding Elder  Frye,  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Reformers  of  1827-28, 
already  fully  gone  over  in  this  volume.  It  was  found  that  two 
witnesses  who  were  present,  W.  S.  Lipscomb  of  the  South  and 
George  Brown  of  the  West,  agreed  that  it  was  incorporated  to  fore- 
stall the  possibility  of  a  recurrence  of  such  a  procedure.  This 
view  is  also  sustained  by  the  fact,  as  the  minutes  show,  that  it 
was  offered  by  James  R.  Williams,  than  whom  there  was  no  more 
pronounced  antislavery  man  living  in  a  slave  State.  It  was  he 
who  answered  McCaine's  pamphlet  issued  in  1842  defensive  of 
American  domestic  slavery.  If  farther  evidence  were  wanting, 
it  is  supplied  by  the  fact  that  this  article  was  not  reached  until 
some  time  after  Article  VII.  had  been  passed,  which  settled  the 
status  of  the  Church  as  to  the  slavery  question.  And  yet  farther 
than  that  there  seems  to  have  been  none  of  the  contention  over  it 
there  was  over  Article  VII.  Yet  these  facts  make  it  all  the  more 
remarkable.  Legally,  as  framed,  it  cannot  be  made  to  cover 
ministers  and  preachers.    It  does  not  say,  every  white  minister 


276  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


and  preacher,  but  "every  white  lay-member."  This  legal  loop- 
hole was  not  probably  intended,  but,  if  so,  did  the  representatives 
think  that  the  time  would  not  come  when  the  Church  would  ordain 
colored  men?  They  certainly  had  no  foreign  missionary  pros- 
pects, for  how,  as  for  years  past,  could  our  Constitution  have 
gone  to  Japan  or  any  other  country  not  inhabited  by  "  white  " 
people?  It  must  be  repeated,  it  was  a  narrow  ethnic  enactment, 
and  nothing  but  evil  ever  came  of  it. 

A  non-action  of  the  Convention  has  been  a  moot  to  this  day 
and  always  must  remain  such.  Were  the  Articles  of  Religion, 
as  contained  in  the  Book  and  taken  from  the  old  Book,  and  Wes- 
ley's General  Rules,  formally  adopted  by  the  Convention?  The 
evidence  of  the  minutes  is  that  Aaron  G.  Brewer  made  a  motion 
to  this  effect,  but  it  was  laid  over.  Subsequently  the  question 
was  divided,  and  the  General  Rules  adopted.  The  question  as 
to  the  Articles  of  Religion  came  up  again  and  again,  but  was 
always  deferred,  until,  at  the  heel  of  the  adjournment,  there 
seems  to  have  been  some  informal  agreement  that  the  committee 
on  publication  should  complete  Convention  work  in  this  and  some 
other  matters.  It  appears  to  have  been  crowded  over.  Snethen 
and  Shinn,  it  is  alleged,  were  opposed  to  legislation  on  a  Creed,  ^ 
and  their  views  were  probably  shared  by  others,  but  the  minutes 
do  not  exhibit  any  definite  objection  by  the  representatives. 
The  original  draft  of  the  Constitution  made  provision  for  it  in 
the  sixth  section  of  Article  X.,  among  the  Restrictive  Rules: 
"  Nor  shall  any  alteration  or  additions  be  made  in  the  religious 
principles  adopted  by  this  Convention."    This  member  of  the 

1  Rev.  Dr.  D.  S.  Stephens  in  1880-1884  issued  three  ably  compiled  and  written 
pamphlets  on  "  Views  of  the  Reformers,"  and  a  "  Defense  "  of  the  same,  in  which 
the  negative  of  the  binding  effect  of  these  Articles  is  taken  in  controversion  of  a 
note  appended  to  tliem  by  the  General  Conference  of  1880,  making  them  obligatory 
as  teaching  authority.  A  vast  amount  of  material  is  here  brought  together  with 
painstaking  accuracy,  and  those  who  would  see  what  can  be  said  for  the  widest 
liberty  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  faith  and  doctrine  are  referred  to  them. 
These  Articles  of  Religion  formed  a  part  of  Wesley's  abridged  Prayer  Book  of 
1784  for  the  American  Methodists.  He  excised  sections,  etc.,  but  did  not  formu- 
late the  distinctive  doctrines  he  preached  as  set  forth  in  his  Sermons  and  Notes  on 
the  New  Testament,  so  that  they  mean  but  little  as  expressions  of  Methodist  doc- 
trine. Out  of  the  controversy  engendered  by  the  action  of  1880,  based  upon  alleged 
loose  doctrinal  teaching  in  the  northwestern  section,  grew  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  writer  to  secure  such  a  formulation  of  Methodist  doctrine,  and  a  committee 
was  authorized  by  the  General  Conference  of  18S8  to  perform  this  labor.  But 
opposition  arose  to  any  such  amendment  to  the  Articles,  and  the  work  of  the  com- 
mittee was  laid  over,  and  has  so  continued  as  "unfinished  business"  not  soon 
probably  to  be  revived.  The  General  Conference  of  189G  "  indefinitely  postponed  " 
the  whole  matter.    See  "  Minutes,"  p.  5i. 


''ARTICLES  OF  RELIGION  "  —  ADOPTED  ?  277 


section  was  not  adopted.  When  the  Constitution  and  Disci- 
pline of  1830  appeared  in  book  form,  the  Articles  of  Religion 
were  in  it  as  now,  except  as  since  verbally  amended  by  the  Union 
Convention  of  1877.  The  authority  for  it  was  explained  by 
James  K.  Williams  of  the  publishing  committee  as  found  in  that 
alleged  understanding  of  the  Convention.  Brewer,  however,  who 
made  the  first  motion  as  to  the  matter,  positively  objected  to  the 
explanation  as  sufficient  authority.  The  question  was  revived  in 
the  General  Conference  of  1834,  but  that  Conference  refused  to 
disturb  their  position  in  the  Book,  and  so  the  matter  stands  to-day. 
It  is  significant  of  the  intention  of  the  Convention  to  have  passed 
upon  the  Articles  of  Religion  in  that  during  their  consideration 
Cornelius  Springer  moved  to  amend  the  twenty-fifth,  by  inserting 
after  the  words  *'may  swear"  the  words  "or  affirm,"  which  was 
carried. 

A  few  other  items  non-concurred  in  must  be  noticed.  Dr.  Jen- 
nings, as  leader  of  the  locality  in  the  Convention,  endeavoring  to 
circumvent  their  defeat  in  the  constitution  of  Annual  Conferences, 
offered  an  addition  to  the  Article  in  these  words  :  "  Any  minister 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  not  properly  itinerant,  hav- 
ing satisfactory  gifts  and  qualifications  for  usefulness  to  the 
Church,  who  shall  report  himself  to  the  Annual  Conference  as 
willing  to  be  accountable  to  that  body  for  his  official  conduct, 
and  labor  regularly  and  gratuitously  in  concert  with  the  plan  of 
the  circuit  or  station  within  the  bounds  of  which  he  may  reside, 
upon  a  vote  of  the  Conference  in  his  favor  shall  be  admitted  to  a 
seat,  and  his  name  shall  be  enrolled  as  a  member  of  the  Confer- 
ence." The  yeas  and  nays  were  called,  and  it  was  defeated  by  a 
vote  of  twenty-nine  to  fourteen,  French  of  the  itinerants  voting 
for  it,  and  Avery,  Waters,  and  Williams  of  the  locality  voting 
against  it.  Subsequently,  Zollickoffer,  Bromley,  Burgess,  Budd, 
and  Richardson  entered  a  protest  against  the  exclusion  of  the 
locality  from  membership  in  the  Annual  Conference.  The  salvo 
they  received  was  a  recognition  in  Article  VIII.,  making  one 
minister  who  is  "not  under  the  stationing  authority"  from  each 
circuit  and  station  members  of  the  Electoral  College;  and,  by  a 
legal  fiction  classing  them  with  the  laity,  they  were  at  the  will 
of  the  Annual  Conference  elected  as  representatives,  and  this 
courtesy  for  a  number  of  years  was  allowed  in  the  Maryland  and 
other  Conferences.    It  has  passed  into  desuetude.^ 

1  A  representative  ofl&cial  of  the  Church  has  recently  characterized  the  provi- 
sion for  an  Electoral  College  regulating  the  matter  of  suffrage  for  representatives 


278 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


J.  J.  Harrod  made  an  effort  to  secure  under  very  strict  limita- 
tions a  General  Superintendency,  but  it  was  laid  on  the  table  on 
Ms  own  motion  and  not  thereafter  referred  to. 

Harrod's  hymn  book  was  adopted  until  the  next  General  Con- 
ference. He  was  appointed  Book  Agent  and  publisher.  The 
name  of  the  periodical  now  under  the  direct  control  of  the  General 
Conference  was  The  Mutual  Eights  and  Methodist  Protestant.  A 
Book  Committee  was  elected  by  the  Convention :  Francis  Waters, 
James  E.  Williams,  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  John  Chappell,  Jr., 
and  John  H.  Kennard.  A  committee  to  nominate  for  Editor  re- 
ported the  names  of  William  S.  Stockton,  John  S.  Eeese,  Dennis 
B.  Dorsey,  and  Cornelius  Springer.  All  withdrew  save  William 
S.  Stockton,  who  was  duly  elected  in  his  absence.  The  periodical 
and  publishing  house  were  located  in  Baltimore.  A  committee 
to  prepare  an  Address  to  be  appended  to  the  Discipline  was 
appointed.  Such  an  Address  appears,  reputed  to  have  been 
written  by  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  and  was  retained  for  a  series  of 
years.  The  Book  Committee  was  authorized  to  prepare  a  Preface 
to  the  book  of  Discipline.  The  Convention  adjourned  with  prayer 
by  Asa  Shinn.  Signed,  Francis  Waters,  President;  George 
Brown,  Secretary  pro  tern. 

to  the  General  Conference  as  nonsense."  A  careful  examination  of  the  reasons 
for  it  and  the  safeguards  it  provides  demonstrates  that  no  wiser  measure  ever  was 
incorporated  in  the  church  law.  The  declaration  was  probably  a  passing  impulse 
—  it  could  not  have  been  a  mature  judgment.  A  full  history  of  it  is  given  by  J.  J. 
Harrod  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  of  March  15,  1851,  as  also  recently  justified 
for  its  wisdom  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray.    Gideon  Davis  was  the  author  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


Hierarchic  denominations  aggregations  of  force;  the  Constitution  of  the  New 
Church  made  it  an  aggregation  of  consent ;  it  must  prove  its  right  to  exist  — 
The  Methodist  Correspondent  established  at  Cincinnati  —  The  Church  growing ; 
yearly  increase  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent;  statistics  —  Bascom  still 
writing  under  pseudonyms  —  New  facts  as  to  Rev.  William  Burke,  a  pioneer  of 
Methodism  —  Gamaliel  Bailey  editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper  —  General  pros- 
perity of  the  new  organization  in  every  direction  —  Bascom  invited  to  unite 
openly  with  the  new  Church ;  his  certified  answer;  want  of  support  — Second 
volume  of  Methodist  Protestant ;  digest  of  contents — Pastoral  Address  of  the 
General  Conference  of  the  old  Church  slanderously  attacks  the  new  Church ;  it 
destroyed  the  last  hope  waiting  Reformers  entertained  of  change  of  polity  — 
Second  volume  of  Methodist  Protestant  —  The  Methodist  Correspondeyit  re- 
moved to  Pittsburgh  with  Rev.  Cornelius  Springer,  editor  — Third  volume  of 
Methodist  Protestant ;  digest  of  its  news  —  The  Correspondent  removed  to 
Zanesville  under  Springer  —  Abolitionism  organizes  —  Secession  in  Charleston, 
S.  C.  —  New  series  of  Methodist  Protestant  June  11,  1834. 

Thus  a  new  Cliurcli  was  made  a  necessity  in  American  Metho- 
dism. It  had  as  its  distinctive  peculiarity  the  representative 
principle.  Denominationally  it  was  another  aggregation,  but 
instead  of  one  of  force  it  was  one  of  consent.  As  the  old  mon- 
archies of  Europe  scouted  the  idea  that  a  republic  could,  with  the 
same  representative  principle,  vitally  cohere  in  America,  so  the 
new  Constitution  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  was  held 
up  to  animadversion  as  a  rope  of  sand :  the  sentiment  had  been 
ingrained  that  Christian  men  can  be  governed  only  by  force,  at 
least  as  Methodists.  Eepresentation  was  not,  however,  a  new 
thing  in  English  Methodism.  The  Primitive  Methodists,  with  a 
double  representation  of  the  laity  as  against  the  ministry,  had 
been  organized  by  the  same  kind  of  necessity;  and  it  not  only 
cohered,  but  succeeded  beyond  the  Wesleyan  body,  as  was  ex- 
hibited in  the  first  volume.  Not  only  so,  the  New  Connexion 
Methodists,  out  of  an  earlier  like  necessity,  with  an  equal  repre- 
sentation, proved  its  right  to  exist,  cohere,  and  prosper,  to  this 
day,  on  a  high  plane  of  piety  and  culture,  as  has  also  been  exhib- 
ited in  the  first  volume.  But  these  bright  precedent  examples 
were  rarely  ever  even  mentioned  in  the  literature  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church ;  and  it  is  an  unaccountable  fact  that  the 

279 


280  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Reformers  of  1827-30  make  no  use  of  these  examples  ^  in  their 
arguments,  as  could  have  been  done  with  unanswerable  effect. 
It  remained  for  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  as  an  aggrega- 
tion of  consent,  to  prove  its  right  to  exist  and  prosper.  The 
course  of  its  history  shall  now  be  traced  as  its  quadrenniums  pass 
before  me. 

The  Eeformers  of  the  West,  in  the  autumn  of  1830,  felt  that 
the  cause  must  have  a  periodical  among  them,  and  so  associated 
themselves  for  this  purpose.  November  1  the  first  number  of 
the  Methodist  Correspondent  appeared.^  It  was  an  eight-page 
quarto,  bi-monthly,  edited  and  published  by  Rev.  Moses  M. 
Henkle,  in  Cincinnati,  0.,  at  one  dollar  a  year.  It  was  ably 
conducted,  with  Shinn,  Bascom,  Snethen,  Springer,  Brown,  and 
other  leading  writers  as  frequent  contributors.  It  was  under  the 
patronage  and  auspices  of  the  Ohio  Conference,  which  now  in- 
cluded the  whole  territory  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  It  gives  in 
full  the  minutes  of  the  second  Conference,  held  September  2, 
1830,  in  Cincinnati,  with  eighty-five  ordained  ministers,  two- 
thirds  of  whom  were  local,  and  fifty  lay-delegates.  The  mem- 
bership was  reported  at  3791,  a  net  gain  of  1765,  or  nearly  one 
hundred  per  cent  for  the  year.  It  published  the  Constitution 
of  the  Church,  and  Bascom's  ''Declaration  of  Rights,"  anony- 
mously, as  he  had  not  withdrawn  from  the  old  Church.  The 
series  of  articles  from  his  pen,  running  through  the  whole  of  the 
first  volume  under  the  pseudonym  "Paul,"  with  the  title  "Paul 
on  the  Ministry,"  attracted  wide  attention  for  their  ability  and 
defence  of  the  principles  of  Reformers  as  to  ministerial  parity. 
It  was  the  last  consecutive  literary  work  he  performed  in  the 
direct  interest  of  the  new  Church.  The  editor  was  intimate  with 
him;  afterward  became  his  biographer,  and  in  it  admits  the 
authorship  of  these  articles.  Bascom  was  never  known  to  retract 
any  argument  or  principle  advocated  in  them.  The  Itinerant 
characterized  it  as  "a new  Radical  paper,"  and  pathetically  called 
on  its  correspondents  to  furnish  evidence  from  "  those  districts 

1  A  solitary  exception  is  found  in  the  Address  of  the  Convention  of  1827  to  the 
general  Methodist  Church  — the  representative  principle  among  the  English  Re- 
formers is  cited  casually. 

2  The  six  volumes  of  the  Methodist  Correspondent,  bound  up  in  two,  now  be- 
fore the  writer,  are  from  the  Bassett  Deposit  at  Adrian  College,  loaned  by  the 
authorities.  The  last  number  was  issued  November  5,  IS'M).  They  are  indispen- 
sable to  a  right  understanding  of  Reform  in  the  West,  and  have  been  carefully 
read  and  freely  used  in  the  composition  of  this  History.  It  is  perhaps  the  only 
perfect  file  of  it  in  existence. 


BEV.  WILLIAM  BUBKE — NEW  FACTS 


281 


infected  with  the  plague  of  radicalism  "  to  support  Dr.  Bond's 
averment:  "Reform  is  dead;  let  its  ashes  rest  in  peace."  The 
unprecedented  increase  of  one  hundred  per  cent  in  the  West 
was  the  evidence,  mostly  conversions.  It  notes  the  demise  of 
Rev.  Evert  Richman,  August  19,  1830,  one  of  the  truest  local 
Reformers  from  the  old  Church.  It  supplies  a  brief  chapter  in 
the  history  of  Rev.  William  Burke,  one  of  the  brave  and  devoted 
pioneers  of  Methodism  in  the  West,  which  Dr.  Stevens  does  not 
include  in  his  panegyrics  of  him.^ 

A  Preachers'  Aid  Society  was  organized  early  in  1830  to  sup- 
plement salaries  of  itinerants  for  the  Ohio  Conference,  location 
Cincinnati.  A  number  of  successful  camp-meetings  were  held 
during  the  summer  of  1830.  To  these  and  other  meetings  the 
old  side  ministers  were  invited,  but  they  never  reciprocated  —  it 
would  have  smirched  them  with  "  Radicalism  " ;  they  durst  not  if 
inclined.  A  seminary  was  projected  thus  early  for  the  West; 
and  afterward  materialized,  with  Snethen  as  its  head.  Shinn 
republished,  in  Cincinnati,  a  second  edition  of  "An  Essay  on 
the  Plan  of  Salvation,"  first  issued  in  Baltimore,  in  1813,  revised 
and  extended.  It  is  a  masterful  and  unanswerable  argument  for 
Arminian  Methodism.  The  third  Ohio  Conference  reported  a 
membership  of  5660,  another  net  increase  of  about  seventy-five 
percent.  It  was  thus  that  Reform  kept  "going  down."  Rev. 
William  Reeves  and  his  wife  Hannah,  both  local  preachers 
from  the  English  Methodists,  began  their  career  of  fidelity  to 
American  Reform  and  loyalty  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
summer  of  1831.    At  the  close  of  its  first  volume  the  Corre- 

1  After  many  years'  service  he  retired  and  settled  in  Cincinnati  about  1820-22. 
He  was  subsequently  expelled  from  the  Ohio  Conference,  the  records  showing  no 
other  charge  than  "  contumacy."  He  appealed  to  the  General  Conference  of 
1824,  which  confirmed  his  expulsion.  He  then  entered  the  Reformed  Methodist 
movement  of  the  Stillwell  school,  and  did  much  to  organize  a  society  of  this  kind 
in  Ohio.  One  of  the  charges  alleged  against  the  Union  Society  of  Cincinnati  was 
that  it  permitted  William  Burke  to  assemble  with  them.  Matters  continued  thus 
until  1829-30,  when  to  the  surprise  of  himself  and  friends  he  was  visited  and 
coddled  by  Bishop  M'Kendree,  and  by  friendly  overtures  brought  back  into  asso- 
ciation with  the  M.  E.  Church,  without  his  ever  making  any  "  confession,  con- 
trition," or  "  receiving  proper  trial "  as  a  probationer.  It  was  one  of  the  methods 
employed  to  prevent  influential  men  from  aiding  the  Radicals.  The  Church  went 
back  to  him  lest  the  Burkeites  should  secede.  He  was  employed  as  one  of  the  reg- 
ular Cincinnati  preachers,  but  never  absolved  from  his  "  expulsion  "  by  ofiicial 
act.  It  was  not  Christian  charity  but  church  policy ;  he  had  acquired  considerable 
property,  practically  owned  the  Reform  Church  he  built,  and  had  no  heirs.  See 
Methodist  Correspondent,  vol.  I.  p.  90.  See  also  humorous  anecdote  of  Snethen 
and  Burke  while  spectators  together  at  the  M.  E.  General  Conference  of  1836 
at  Cincinnati,  in  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  p.  263. 


282 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


spondent  had  about  thirteen  hundred  subscribers.  The  editor  and 
publisher  was  somewhat  involved  in  its  publication,  and  retired 
from  the  position. 

The  Book  Committee  of  Baltimore  informed  W.  S.  Stockton  of 
his  election  as  editor,  but  he  declined.  It  was  then  tendered  to 
his  son  Thomas  H.,  who  also  declined,  no  positive  reason  being 
given  in  either  case.  It  is  a  tradition  that  the  restraints  of  a 
Book  Committee  were  objectionable  to  men  of  such  pronounced 
individuality  as  made  it  impossible,  despite  the  almost  patroniz- 
ing attitude  of  the  Church,  to  keep  either  of  them,  for  a  life 
tenure,  within  connectional  metes  and  bounds.  It  was  finally 
arranged  with  Gamaliel  Bailey,  M.D.,  son  of  the  veteran  Metho- 
dist itinerant  of  that  name,  to  take  editorial  charge,  with  John 
Jolly  Harrod  as  publisher.  The  Mutual  Rights  and  Methodist 
Protestant,  the  last  name  printed  in  capitals,  black  letter,  and 
soon  received  as  the  abridged  title,  was  issued  January  7,  1831, 
the  subscription  list,  etc.,  of  the  Mutual  Rights  and  Christian 
Intelligencer  being  transferred  to  it.^  It  was  a  large  quarto,  four- 
page  weekl}^,  at  ^2.50  a  year.  Notice  is  given  in  the  second 
number  that  the  religious,  and  not  the  controversial,  side  was 
to  be  made  paramount  in  the  new  paper.  It  also  contained  a 
brief  obituary  of  Mrs.  Susan  H.  Snethen,  aged  fifty-three,  who 
departed  November  10,  1830.     She  died  in  Indiana,  whither 

1  A  controversy  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1898  between  the  Christian  Advocate 
of  New  York  and  Zion's  Herald  of  Boston  as  to  priority,  each  claiming  to  be  the 
oldest  Methodist  paper  in  the  United  States,"  but  as  the  Herald  by  its  o\m  showing 
only  dates  from  1823  and  the  Advocate  from  1826,  the  genealogj-  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  makes  it  plain  that  it  and  not  either  of  those  carries  the  palm  as  the  oldest 
Methodist  newspaper  in  this  country  of  continuous  publication.  It  was  the  Wesleyan 
Reposltorij  from  1821  to  1824,  the  Mutual  Rights  from  1824  to  1828,  and  the  Mutual 
Rights  and  Christian  Intelligencer  from  1828  to  1830,  when  it  became  the  Mutual 
Rights  and  Methodist  Protestant,  the  latter  title  soon  flying  at  the  masthead  alone, 
where  it  has  been  nailed  for  sixty-eight  years.  So  this  paper  legitimately  dates  from 
1821,  two  years  before  Zion's  Herald  and  five  years  before  the  Christian  Advocate. 
The  Advocate  for  November  24,  1898,  quite  voluminously  disputes  this  claim  prin- 
cipally on  the  ground  that  the  Depository  was  a  monthly  and  the  Mutual  Rights 
also,  and  that  its  claim  and  that  of  Zion's  Herald  is  as  "a  weekly  Methodist 
paper."  Well,  so  qualified,  that  does  settle  it,  but  it  cannot  be  unsettled  that  the 
Methodist  Protestant  is  a  successor  of  the  Mutual  Rights  and  Wesleyan  Reposi- 
tory, inasmuch  as  a  moral  certainty  is  established  from  contemporary  evidence 
that  the  subscription  lists  and  proprietary  rights  of  both  came  to  the  Methodist 
Protestant  as  such,  and  were  both  discontinued  one  after  the  other  in  the  succes- 
sion until  the  last  appeared.  This  makes  it  as  claimed  the  "oldest  Methodist 
newspaper  in  the  country."  The  only  thing  that  could  invalidate  it  would  be  for 
the  Advocate  or  the  Herald  to  show  that  either  of  them  succeeded  to  the  subscrip- 
tion list,  etc.,  of  the  Methodist  Magazine,  a  monthly,  originated  in  1818,  and  that 
it  was  discontinued  in  favor  of  either  of  them.    This  cannot  be  done. 


THE  OFFICIAL  PAPER  AND  CONTENTS  283 


her  husband,  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen,  had  removed  the  previous 
month  of  May.  Its  literary  and  religious  tone  was  very  high. 
Dr.  Bailey  did  not  take  charge  until  the  sixth  number.  It  is 
worth  passing  notice  that  T.  S.  Arthur,  the  writer  of  world- 
wide celebrity  in  after  years,  and  whose  family  was  of  the  new 
Church,  resident  in  Baltimore,  offered  to  it  perhaps  his  first 
youthful  contribution,  which  was  declined  with  encouraging 
words.  The  proceedings  of  the  Convention  with  the  Con- 
stitution and  Discipline  ran  through  the  opening  numbers. 
Colonization  was  the  favorite  theory  in  that  day  of  both  pro- 
and  anti-slavery  men.  Bascom  was  agent  for  the  Society  for 
several  years,  and  the  subject  was  discussed  by  the  editor  and 
others.  Both  the  Pitt  Street  (East  Baltimore  station)  and  St. 
John's,  Liberty  Street,  were  opened  on  Sabbath  for  these  meet- 
ings. At  the  close  of  the  first  volume,  Gamaliel  Bailey  re- 
signed and  removed  to  Washington,  D.  C,  where  he  established 
and  conducted  for  some  years  the  National  Era,  an  antislavery 
paper  of  great  ability  and  temperate  discussion. 

To  show  the  spirit  of  the  times,  the  Genesee  Annual  Confer- 
ence, which  met  in  the  town  of  Ogden,  Monroe  County,  N.  Y., 
February  5,  1831,  accepting  their  constitutional  privilege,  adopted 
the  following  resolve,  "  That  all  the  colored  members  belonging 
to  the  Church,  within  the  bounds  of  this  Conference,  be  entitled 
to  the  same  rights  of  suffrage  and  membership  with  the  white 
members."  February  3,  1831,  F.  L.  B.  Shaver,  George  R.  Barr, 
Thomas  Spragen,  Eobert  Comtchfied,  David  H.  Boyd,  Adolphus 
C.  Shaver,  Hervy  Garrison,  Philip  Rohr,  and  Christopher  Rode- 
fer  adopted  the  Constitution,  and  withdrew  from  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  at  Abingdon,  Va.  Several  of  these  names  are 
historic.  The  Pennsylvania  Conference,  April  5,  1831,  reported 
111  preaching-places,  including  six  meeting-houses  in  the  Dis- 
trict, and  983  members.  It  convened  in  Philadelphia.  The  New 
York  Conference  reported,  April  7,  1831,  a  membership  of  988, 
net  increase  428,  or  nearly  one  hundred  per  cent.  Shinn  and 
most  of  the  leading  Reform  writers  resumed  their  pens  in  the 
Methodist  Protestant.  It  contained  several  articles  on  Education 
Societies  by  "  Presbyter,"  H.  B.  Bascom.  McCaine,  as  "  Veritas," 
reopened,  by  permission,  the  Reform  controversy  on  its  merits. 
"  A  General  Home  Missionary  Society  "  for  the  whole  connection, 
was  organized  at  St.  John's,  Baltimore,  August  4,  1831,  with 
officers  selected  from  every  section  of  the  Church,  Dr.  Francis 
Waters,  Chairman,  and  J.  J.  Harrod,  Secretary.     A  great  revi- 


284 


HISTOBY  OF  METUOBIST  BEFORM 


val  at  this  St.  John's  occurred  a  few  months  prior,  when  fifty 
seekers  at  once  filled  the  altar  and  the  pews.  Numerous  camp- 
meetings  in  Maryland  and  elsewhere.  Dr.  Waters's  Seminary, 
Baltimore,  received  Divinity  students.  Eev.  Eobert  Sparks,  an 
old  ex-itinerant,  and  one  of  the  first  Reformers  of  Queen  Anne's 
County,  Md.,  died  August,  1831.  Eev.  Thomas  H.  Stockton  was 
appointed  Agent  of  the  "  General  Missionary  Society,"  September 
25,  1831. 

The  second  Georgia  Annual  Conference  was  organized  at 
Sweringen's  camp-ground,  Twiggs  County,  July  29,  1831,  Eppes 
Tucker,  President,  Eichard  Blount,  Secretary.  Ministers :  A.  G. 
Brewer,  Thomas  Gardner,  James  Hodge,  Harrison  Jones,  James 
E.  Lowrey,  Henry  Saxon,  James  E.  Swain,  B.  Sweringen, 
Eppes  Tucker,  Ethel  Tucker,  Sr.,  Eobert  P.  Ward,  Charles  P. 
Witherspoon,  Eobert  W.  V.  Wynne,  Charles  Williamson.  Lay- 
delegates:  Eichard  A.  Blount,  Philip  Causey,  Jacob  W.  Cobb, 
Maniel  Collier,  W.  P.  Gilbert,  Charles  Kennon,  Arthur  Lucas, 
Taliaferro  Moore,  Geo.  W.  Eay,  James  Shields,  James  Swer- 
ingen, Eobert  Tucker,  Ethel  Tucker,  Jr.,  Josiah  Wliitehurst. 
"Laicus,"  W.  S.  Stockton,  furnished  a  series  on  "  The  Elementary 
Principles,"  explanatory  and  defensive.  E.  B.  Thomson  and 
Lewis  F.  Cosby,  both  of  the  Virginia  Conference  and  historic 
names,  appear  as  correspondents.  The  first  volume  closed  with 
the  December  30th  number.  It  had  heralded  prosperity  for  the 
new  Church  in  every  direction,  and  its  circulation  could  not  have 
been  short  of  twenty-five  hundred,  with  the  West  largely  sup- 
porting the  Correspondent.  Societies  were  organized  far  beyond 
the  ministerial  supply.  A  call  was  made  in  one  of  the  numbers 
for  fifty  preachers,  as  an  emergency  supply;  but  they  could  not 
be  had. 

About  this  time  J.  J.  Harrod,  one  of  the  fast  friends  of  Bas- 
com,  wrote  him  soliciting  his  help  and  formal  union  with  the  new 
Church ;  whose  cause  he  still  continued  to  advocate  in  a  quiet 
way,  as  his  membership  was  yet  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  He  made  answer  that  he  would  come  out  and  cast 
his  fortunes  with  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  if  he  could  be 
guaranteed  a  support.-^    It  is  safe  to  aver  that  on  this  condition 

1  The  authority  for  this  statement  is  Rev.  L.  W.  Bates,  D.D.,  of  the  Maryland 
Conference,  whose  ministry  dates  from  1840,  and  who  knew  Harrod  as  his  pastor 
in  Baltimore.  He  recently  informed  the  writer  that  he  had  the  statement  from 
Harrod's  own  lips.  The  writer  had  the  same  sta^^sment  some  years  ago  from  the 
late  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  who  was  acquainted  intimately  with  Harrod. 


STRUGGLES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 


285 


an  abundant  supply  could  have  been  secured  from  the  ministry 
of  the  old  Church,  few  of  whom  had  such  financial  necessities  as 
Bascom.  Pressed  with  debt,  a  large  family  of  his  father's  depen- 
dent upon  him,  his  marital  engagement  postponed  from  year  to 
year  for  the  same  reason,  without  habits  of  economy,  those  who 
understood  the  case  uttered  no  censure  for  his  hesitation.  As  a 
support,  not  even  the  pastorate  of  the  old  Church,  though  he  could 
command  the  best,  sufficed  for  him.  Hence  his  acceptance  of 
the  Colonization  Agency  at  this  time;  even  this  salary  was  sup- 
plemented by  the  lecture  field,  as  opportunity  offered,  to  replen- 
ish a  constantly  depleted  purse.  But  he  had  censorious  critics, 
and  they  stung  him  into  a  gradual  alienation  from  his  Reform 
friends ;  but  not  from  its  principles,  as  shall  yet  appear.  The 
new  Church  membership  had  their  financial  ability  tasked  to  the 
extreme,  in  church  building  in  addition  to  the  meagre  salaries  they 
could  raise  for  the  preachers,  who,  in  this  heroic  struggle,  ac- 
cepted a  moiety  of  what  they  should  have  received,  and  could 
have  commanded,  in  the  old  Church  and  elsewhere.  Dr.  John 
S.  Reese  of  Maryland  abandoned  the  promise  of  a  lucrative  medi- 
cal practice,  for  a  young  man,  to  enter  this  ministry,  and  so  with 
many  others  in  various  sections,  whose  adhesion  to  principle  and 
their  self-immolation  the  page  of  history  must  never  cease  to 
mention.  Yet  with  all  these  almost  crushing  disabilities  and 
hamperings  the  new  Church  of  lay-representation  grew  within  a 
year  to  more  than  double  its  numbers,  and  was  stretching  out  in 
every  direction,  to  the  joy  of  its  friends  and  the  ill-concealed 
chagrin  of  its  enemies.  The  new  Church  was  not  only  born,  but 
gave  unmistakable  indications  of  a  thrifty  childhood  and  man- 
hood. It  vexed  its  opponents  because  it  would  not  die.  That 
doughty,  but  brusque  itinerant  of  the  West,  Peter  Cartwright, 
whose  vocabulary  was  noted  for  its  choice  epithets,  dubbed  it 
"that  radical  brat."  Even  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of 
the  parent  body,  through  its  Pastoral  Address,  descended  from 
its  dignity  to  fling  a  false  statement  into  the  teeth  of  the  young 
Church,  as  shall  be  presently  shown. 

The  second  volume  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  was  edited 
impersonally  under  the  Book  Committee.  It  continued  to  in- 
crease in  circulation,  its  pages  filled  with  revival  news  and  of 
newly  organized  churches.  W.  S.  Stockton,  Asa  Shinn,  and 
others,  lead  in  contributions.  As  the  Annual  Conferences  met 
they  reported  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent  increase  of 
members.    Moses  Scott  wrote  often  from  the  work  at  Councils- 


286  BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ville,  Pa.  Rev.  James  Hunter  of  North  Carolina,  one  of  the  truest 
and  earliest  Reformers,  passed  to  his  reward  in  heaven  December 
5,  1831.  Rev.  J.  Cochran,  a  local  Elder,  died  April  15,  1831. 
Rev.  Swain  Swift  of  North  Carolina,  passed  away  October  8,  1831. 
The  Book  Committee  issued  Mosheim's  "Church  History as  a 
venture,  which,  while  it  was  helpful  in  setting  forth  a  true  ac- 
count of  Primitive  Church  government,  proved  a  disastrous  finan- 
cial scheme;  the  first  of  a  series  in  the  history  of  the  Book 
Concern,  involving  individuals  and  the  corporation.  Ezekiel 
Hall,  one  of  the  early  and  stanchest  of  lay-Reformers,  passed 
away  1831.  "  A  distinguished  itinerant  preacher"  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  having  asserted  that  a  marriage  ceremony 
performed  by  a  minister  of  the  new  Church  was  invalid,  a  suit  at 
law  followed  for  the  slanderous  imputation,  and  he  was  mulcted 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  in  3287  as  damages.  See 
Protestant,  Vol.  II.  p.  205.  The  pastors  of  the  two  Methodist 
Protestant  churches  in  Philadelphia,  where  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  met,  in  May,  1832,  ten- 
dered, by  written  invitation,  the  pulpits  to  its  ministers,  but  it 
refused  to  send  a  Sabbath  supply. 

In  its  Pastoral  Address,  of  which  Rev.  William  Winans  was 
Chairman  of  the  committee  reporting,  three  paragraphs  were  given 
to  the  Reformers.  It  says :  "Aroused  by  an  attack  which  threat- 
ened the  integrity  of  those  institutions,  we  carefully  reexamined 
them;  and  having  satisfied  ourselves  of  their  correctness  and 
utility  we,  with  our  whole  charge,  have  embraced  them  the  more 
firmly.  .  .  .  Seldom  has  au  enterprise  resulted  in  a  more  com- 
plete failure  than  that  in  which,  at  the  time  alluded  to  above,  a 
party,  under  the  denomination  of  reformers,  labored  to  change  the 
economy  of  our  Church,  or,  failing  of  that  purpose,  to  overturn 
the  Church  itself.  .  .  .  We  consider  it,  as  now  placed,  beyond 
question  that  our  system  of  government  is  too  highly-appreciated 
by  ourselves,  as  well  as  too  firmly  supported  by  the  hand  of 
heaven,  to  be  shaken  by  designing  men."  Not  through  the 
printed  Minutes  only,  but  the  columns  of  the  Christian  Advocate, 
with  its  twenty-five  thousand  subscribers,  these  unchristian  and 
untruthful  declarations  received  a  wide  dissemination.  It  aroused 
the  Reformers,  and  a  public  meeting  was  called  at  St.  John's, 
Baltimore,  to  answer  the  slanderous  allegatious.  It  was  not  con- 
vened until  July  27,  1832,  that  patience  and  good  temper  might 
not  be  unduly  taxed,  —  Asa  Shinn,  Chairman,  Francis  Waters, 
Secretary.   Notwithstanding,  the  "Review,"  afterward  also  pub- 


OFFICIAL  ATTACK  UPON  THE  NEW  CHURCH  287 

lished  by  the  thousand  and  scattered  broadcast  as  an  antidote, 
was  a  most  scathing  one.  It  covers  three  pages  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant,  and  leaves  nothing  unsaid  to  a  complete  refutation. 
The  sharpest  sentences  in  it  are  these :  "  Their  minions  have  been 
harping  on  this  string,  with  untiring  perseverance,  during  the 
last  four  years,  at  all  points  of  the  compass ;  the  bishops  carefully 
brought  forward  the  same  favorite  theme,  and  placed  it  in  the 
front  of  their  Address,  at  the  opening  of  the  session;  and,  to  cap 
the  climax,  the  whole  Conference  published  a  Pastoral  Address, 
roundly  affirming  that  '  seldom  has  an  enterprise  resulted  in  a 
more  complete  failure, '  while  their  own  case  is  made  to  '  flourish 
more  vigorously  than  ever. ' "  It  is  one  of  a  hundred  instances 
showing  that  the  Keformers  seldom  were  the  aggressors  in  revival 
of  controversy;  but,  as  now,  they  repelled  false  accusation  and 
acted  on  the  defensive,  content  to  be  left  alone  in  their  evan- 
gelistic work;  the  writer  has  already  expressed  the  conviction 
that  they  carried  their  pacific  policy  to  an  unprofitable  extreme  in 
denominational  interest.  It  was  followed  in  the  Protestant  by  a 
masterful  series,  from  the  pen  of  Shinn,  "A  Plea  for  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church."  George  Brown  also  came  to  the  rescue : 
"  The  late  General  Conference  having  wantonly  and  deliberately 
assailed  the  character,  motives,  and  conduct  of  the  Eeformers, 
thereby  evincing  an  inflexible  purpose  to  renew  and  perpetuate 
hostilities,  the  only  alternative  left  the  latter  is  silence  or  defence 
...  we  have,  therefore,  determined  on  the  latter." 

Among  the  most  active  evangelistic  workers  of  the  Reformers 
must  be  mentioned,  Adjet  M'Guire  of  the  West  and  Eli  Henkle 
of  the  East.  Camp-meetings  through  the  summer  months  were 
everywhere  held,  and  a  harvest  of  souls  gathered  into  the  new 
Church.  William  Price,  a  stanch  Reformer  of  the  laity  in 
North  Carolina,  passed  away  July  17,  1832.  It  is  pleasant  to 
note  the  first  departure  from  the  proscriptive  policy  of  the  mother 
church  in  the  Christian  conduct  of  Rev.  William  Barnes,  the 
brilliant,  if  eccentric,  itinerant  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference, 
who,  in  Centreville,  Md.,  denounced  bigotry  and  invited  Reform- 
ers and  others  to  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  was  seconded  by  the 
church  inviting  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper,  who  held  a  local  preacher's 
license  in  the  new  Church  and  effectively  preached  a  simple  gos- 
pel, to  occupy  their  pulpit  on  a  given  Sabbath  afternoon,  which 
was  accepted,  the  two  churches  in  the  town  uniting  in  fraternal 
and  Christian  worship  together,  September  27,  1832.  Thomas 
Mummy  of  Baltimore,  a  steel-true  lay -Reformer,  died  September, 


288 


HI  STORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


1832,  as  also  his  wife  about  the  same  time,  one  of  the  heroic 
Eeform  women.  John  Eliason  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  and  Eev, 
William  Hanna  of  Easton,  Md.,  both  early  Reformers,  died  of 
cholera,  which  was  then  prevailing  throughout  the  United  States. 
Snethen  was  active  in  forming  "Education  Associations,"  the 
culture  of  the  Church  lying  near  his  heart;  but  the  method  did 
not  succeed.  Eev.  Jesse  Morris  of  Georgia,  one  of  the  earliest 
Reformers,  died  April  27,  1832.  "B.  H.  E.,"  a  signature  stand- 
ing for  Beale  H.  Eichardson,  appeared  regularly  from  1831-32 
with  miscellaneous,  literary,  and  religious  articles,  and  these 
were  continued  at  intervals  for  more  than  fifty  years.  He  was 
a  prominent  layman  of  St.  John's,  Baltimore.  Bascom,  a  "Pres- 
byter," commends  Shinn's  "Plan  of  Salvation,"  1832.  As  indi- 
cating the  deep  prejudice  excited  among  all  classes  of  the  old 
Church  against  "Eadicalism,"  it  must  be  noted  that  one  of  their 
popular  churches  in  Philadelphia  petitioned  the  General  Confer- 
ence to  rescind  the  disciplinary  law  that  all  churches  must  be 
built  with  "free  seats."  Though  utterly  irrelevant  they  say, 
"  There  is  no  radicalism,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  concerned 
in  this  memorial;  and  that  if  we  supposed  it  would  have  the  re- 
motest tendency  to  promote  radical  views  or  principles,  we  would 
give  it  to  the  moles  and  bats,  and  still  push  on  under  the  old  sys- 
tem and  do  our  best  to  sustain  it."    Comment  is  unnecessary. 

The  action  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church  was  a  damper  upon  the  hundreds  who  had  recoiled 
under  the  Bond-Emory  defection  and  persecution.  They  said,  to 
come  out  is  a  sacrifice  more  than  can  be  made.  Surely  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  will  take  steps  looking  to  governmental  changes, 
such  as  are  manifestly  demanded,  on  its  own  motion.  What  it 
did,  was  to  extinguish  the  last  hope  of  this  class;  and  not  a  few 
in  various  places  quietly  withdrew,  and  sheltered  their  Christian 
manhood  in  the  new  Church.  Henry  B.  Bascom  was  a  member 
of  this  General  Conference.  Nothing  was  left  undone  to  patron- 
ize him  by  the  authorities.  It  is  said  that  a  respectable  minority 
made  objection  to  parts  of  the  Pastoral  Address ;  but  it  was  carried 
by  a  large  vote.  The  Episcopal  election  resulted  in  the  choice 
of  James  0.  Andrew  of  the  South  by  140,  and  John  Emory  of 
Maryland  by  135  votes  out  of  223.  The  closing  session  was  pre- 
sided over  by  the  latter,  the  only  time  he  occupied  the  Chair  in 
a  General  Conference;  before  1836  "God  took  him."  Bishop 
M'Kendree  made  a  tearful  farewell  to  the  body  in  his  trembling 
old  age,  to  appear  no  more.    Bishop  Paine,  of  the  Methodist 


OFFICIAL  PAPERS  CONSIDERED 


289 


Episcopal  Church,  South,  says  it  was  "  the  most  harmonious  and 
conservative  session  .  .  .  since  the  delegated  body  of  1808." 
Yes,  power,  if  not  successfully  foiled,  is  sure  to  be  reactionary. 
The  vast  presiding  eldership  of  the  Church  took  the  cue,  and 
proscription,  prosecution,  and  persecution  of  Keformers  revived 
in  many  places. 

The  second  volume  of  the  MetJiodist  Correspondent  was  edited 
by  a  committee  of  laymen:  Moses  Lyon,  John  H.  Wood,  and 
W.  L.  Chappell.  Shinn,  though  he  had  fully  sustained  it,  sug- 
gested that  it  would  be  to  the  interest  of  the  general  Church  if  it 
should  be  discontinued  at  the  end  of  this  volume.  The  church 
intelligence  proper  appeared  in  both  the  periodicals  by  transfer, 
and  he  anticipated  the  evils  of  divided  circulation  as  greater  than 
the  local  advantages,  a  lesson  this  Church  never  learned.  For 
fifty  years  its  track  has  been  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  ill- 
advised  and  unsuccessful  ventures  to  establish  local  Conference 
and  sectional  papers.  The  Itinerant,  having  been  discontinued 
in  Baltimore,  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  inspired  by  the 
reaction  of  the  General  Conference  and  appalled,  perhaps,  by  the 
increased  circulation  of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  and  the  spread 
of  the  Church  it  represented,  reopened  its  columns  to  the  old 
controversy,  and  was  unsparing  in  its  attacks.  George  Brown, 
in  the  Correspondent,  notes  the  decease  of  John  Phillips,  one  of 
the  expelled  Reformers  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  August  27,  1831. 
March  10,  1832,  "  Vindex,"  H.  B.  Bascom,  appears  in  vindication 
of  himself  from  a  personal  attack  by  Dr.  Bond  in  the  Itinerant. 
October  6,  1832,  the  Correspondent  was  removed,  by  authority  of 
the  Ohio  Conference,  to  Pittsburgh,  with  Cornelius  Springer  and 
Asa  Shinn  as  editors,  to  whom  Charles  Avery  was  added,  at  the 
close  of  the  second  volume. 

The  third  volume  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  opened  auspi- 
ciously, and  Shinn  utters  a  warning  against  a  slight,  but  natural, 
tendency  of  some  in  the  new  Church  toward  latitudinarianism 
in  the  opening  number.  The  gravitation  to  extremes  was  crop- 
ping out,  and  he  laid  his  strong  hand  upon  it.  It  was  timely. 
The  fourth  Tennessee  Annual  Conference,  December  5,  1832, 
reported  a  net  increase  in  members  of  nearly  one  hundred  per 
cent  for  the  yea,r.  John  J.  Harrod,  publisher,  showed  a  large 
deficit  for  the  Methodist  Protestant,  but  kept  on,  in  his  zeal 
for  the  cause,  not  only  publishing,  but  book-making  on  a  large 
scale,  announcing  now  Prideaux's  "Connexions,"  in  two  vol- 
umes of  450  pages  each.    Such  financial  indiscretion  ended  in  his 

VOL.  II  —  U 


290  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


business  ruin,  and  clouded  his  closing  days  in  disappointment. 
Rev.  R.  W.  W.  Wynne  of  Georgia  deceased  April  10,  1833.  A 
church  was  formed  in  Halifax,  N.  S.,  by  Rev.  William  Jackson, 
of  more  than  fifty  members;  but  this  venture,  like  scores  of 
others,  from  isolation  and  other  causes,  withered  away,  and  was 
hailed  in  evidence  that  the  experiment  of  a  new  Church  was  a 
"failure."  February  13,  1833,  Gideon  Davis  departed  this  life 
in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  and,  for  the  first  time,  the  official  paper  was 
ruled  in  mourning.  Much  of  his  Reform  history  has  already 
been  given.  Dr.  Colhouer  well  says  of  him :  "  As  a  Reformer  he 
was  intelligent  and  deliberate,  and  excelled  in  constructive 
ability.  He  was  thoroughly  American  in  principle;  his  theory 
being  that  government  was  from  the  people,  for  the  people,  and 
by  the  people.  He  was  the  Chancellor  Bruck  of  the  American 
Methodist  Reformation,  and  has  imprinted  his  mental  image  on 
the  economy  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  ^  His  remains 
repose  in  Oakhill  cemetery,  Georgetown,  D.  C.  John  Murray, 
an  early  Reformer  in  Maryland,  died  February  9,  1833.  Rev. 
T.  B.  Balch  appears  as  a  contributor,  and  so  continued  for  many 
years.  Rev.  John  W.  Bordley  of  Maryland,  an  early  and  stanch 
Reformer,  passed  to  heaven  May,  1833,  obsequies  by  Hon.  P.  B. 
Hopper.  A  controversy  runs  through  a  large  part  of  this  volume, 
instigated  by  W.  S.  Stockton,  insisting  that  the  Constitutional 
Convention  gave  liberty  to  Annual  Conferences  to  receive  into 
membership  ministers  not  under  its  stationing  authority ;  which 
was  vigorously  combated  by  other  members  of  the  Convention, 
with  the  resultant  that  in  a  number  of  the  Conferences  all  min- 
isters, "stationed"  and  " unstationed, "  were  on  the  rolls.  In 
Maryland,  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  though  never  an  itinerant, 
was  always  a  member  of  the  Conference.  Many  years  later  the 
Conference  extended  an  honorary  membership  to  the  three  sur- 
viving unstationed  ministers  of  the  Reform  period,  W.  C.  Lips- 
comb, Thomas  McCormick,  and  Amon  Richards.  David  Reese, 
one  of  the  first  Baltimore  Reformers,  died  June  12,  1833.  The 
women  of  Virginia  organized  a  "Preachers'  Aid  Society,"  at 

1  "Sketches  of  the  Founders  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,"  by  T.  H. 
Colhouer,  A.M.  Pittsburgh.  Methodist  Protestant  Book  Concern,  1880.  12mo. 
464  pp.  Cloth.  This  is  a  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  Church  literature.  It 
is  garnished  with  numerous  excellent  wood-cut  engravings  of  early  Reformers, 
both  lay  and  clerical,  and  covers  sketches  of  eighty-one  prominent  brethren.  It 
contains  also,  as  an  appendix,  a  valuable  bibliography.  It  should  be  in  the  course 
of  reading  of  all  our  Conferences  as  an  inspiration  to  young  preachers.  No  Church 
can  boast  a  nobler  list  of  ecclesiastical  heroes. 


NECROLOGY  OF  NOBLE  BEFOBMEIiS 


291 


Norfolk.  July,  1833,  Rev.  Charles  W.  Jacobs,  a  brilliant  and 
youthful  member  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  passed  to  his  re- 
ward. A  24mo  memoir  was  issued  by  Eev.  A.  A.  Lipscomb, 
as  the  first  of  literary  ventures,  which  made  him  a  high  reputa- 
tion in  after  years  throughout  all  Southern  Methodism.  John 
Scott,  born  February  9,  1783,  in  Donegal  County,  Ireland,  was  a 
Wesleyan  Methodist,  and,  in  1819,  emigrated  to  America  and 
settled  in  Washington  County,  Pa.  He  became  a  Methodist 
Reformer  from  the  beginning,  and  was  a  subscriber  to  the  Mutual 
Eights.  In  1829  almost  the  entire  society  at  Bethel,  where  he 
was  a  prominent  member,  withdrew  from  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church,  and  organized  under  the  Conventional  Articles  of 
1828.  He  continued  steadfast  in  his  principles  and  loyalty  to 
Christ  until  December  23,  1833,  when  he  peacefully  departed 
this  life.  He  was  the  father  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Scott,  who 
fills  so  large  a  place  in  this  History.  September  25,  1833,  the 
Ohio  Conference  resolved  to  divide,  certain  territory  being  set  off 
as  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  —  George  Brown,  President  of  the 
former  and  Asa  Shinn  of  the  latter ;  a  net  increase  in  the  body  of 
nearly  three  thousand  for  the  year,  or  about  eighty  per  cent. 
J.  G.  Whitfield  took  prominence  in  the  Virginia  Conference  from 
1832.  Tennessee  Conference,  October  17,  1833,  moved  to  abolish 
the  order  of  deacon  in  the  Church.  Thomas  H.  Stockton  elected 
chaplain  to  Congress,  December,  1833,  by  a  vote  of  143  to  34  for 
Mr.  Hammett  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  third 
volume  closed  with  an  increased  patronage. 

Volume  III.  of  the  Methodist  Correspondent,  Springer,  Shinn, 
and  Avery,  editors.  Joseph  J.  Amos  is  a  frequent  lay-contrib- 
utor of  church  news,  and  through  a  long  life  maintained  his 
loyalty,  and  bequeathed  $21,000  to  Adrian  College,  in  addition 
to  liberal  gifts  always.  An  effort  was  made,  December  5,  1832, 
to  secure  from  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  by  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  a  legalization  of  their  trust  deed  to  property; 
but  it  was  opposed  and  defeated  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
make  an  invidious  discrimination  in  its  favor  over  other  denomi- 
nations, and  ally  it  too  closely  to  the  State.  It  grew  out  of  the 
recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  under  Judge  Gibson, 
awarding  the  Pittsburgh  property  to  the  Reformers,  heretofore 
explained.  The  Correspondent  was  ably  conducted,  but  most  of 
its  church  intelligence  was  transferred  from  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant. It  was  now  removed  to  Zanesville,  0.,  and  reappeared 
after  six  weeks'  intermission,  October  17,  1833,  the  profits,  if 


292 


mSTOBT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


any,  to  be  divided  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Pittsburgh  Confer- 
ences. It  assumed  more  of  a  literary  and  agricultural  character. 
John  Clarke,  Joseph  and  Israel  Thrapp,  appear  as  contributors. 
The  "Editor"  corresponds  from  Georgetown,  D.  C,  the  seat  of 
the  first  General  Conference,  of  which  notice  shall  be  made  in  tlie 
next  chapter.  jSTumerous  camp-meetings  were  held  in  the  West 
during  the  summer  of  1834.  The  extreme  antislavery  element 
of  the  country  about  this  time  organized  in  Abolition  Societies, 
one  in  the  West  and  one  in  iS"ew  York,  and  other  places.  Popu- 
lar sentiment  was  as  yet  opposed  to  what  was  called  "  amalgama- 
tion," approved  by  them,  intermarriage  of  the  races,  etc.,  and 
the  Correspondent  notes  as  follows:  "Disgraceful  riots  have 
recently  happened  in  New  York,  in  which  the  Abolitionists  are 
censured  as  the  cause.  It  seems  that  this  society  is  destined  to 
become  the  butt  of  public  reproach  and  persecution;  but  this  is 
no  sign  that  they  are  wrong."  It  shall  be  seen  how  it  grew  apace 
in  Methodism,  and  precipitated  the  alienation  of  the  sections. 

The  fourth  volume  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  began  January  3, 
1834.  "Philadelphia,"  Joseph  McKer,  a  layman,  continued 
frequent  contributions,  and  "Onesimus"  appeared.  Rev.  L.  F. 
Cosby,  as  a  forcible  writer.  A  Literary  Institution  was  proposed 
by  the  Alabama  Conference.  "Lacidar,"  Rev.  A.  Webster,  ap- 
peared as  a  contributor.  A  masterful  sermon  by  Rev.  Lemuel 
Haynes  (colored)  is  published  in  full  against  Rev.  Ballou,  Uni- 
versalist,  delivered  in  Rutland,  Vt.,  June,  1805.  A  large  seces- 
sion took  place  from  the  old  Church  in  Charleston,  S.  C, 
instigated  by  the  enforced  seating  of  colored  persons  with  the 
whites  in  the  church,  encouraged  by  Dr.  Capers,  and  other  local 
questions,  involving  conflict  between  the  laity  and  the  Confer- 
ence authorities.  Trials  and  expulsions  took  place,  resulting  in 
the  organization  of  a  Methodist  Protestant  Church;  which  was 
a  landmark  for  many  years,  and  continued  until  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  which  scattered  the  membership,  while  the  church 
property  was  damaged  greatly  by  the  bombardment  of  the  city. 
Such  names  as  Hillard,  Laval,  Kirkwood,  Norton,  Thomas,  and 
Honour  can  never  be  forgotten  as  its  stanch  supporters.^  January 
28,  1834,  Anna  G.  Chappell,  wife  of  John  Chappell  of  Baltimore, 

1  Those  who  are  curious  to  know  all  the  details  of  this  remarkable  case  are 
referred  to  "An  Exposition  of  the  Causes  which  Led  to  the  Secession  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Charleston,  S.  C."  Charleston,  1834.  8vo.  31  pp., 
and  supplements  to  it,  preserved  in  the  writer's  "Radical  Church  Tracts"  vol- 
ume. In  18-38  the  church  was  destroyed  in  the  great  Charleston  fire.  It  had  cost 
$12,000,  with  a  debt  of  $4000  upon  it,  but  even  such  a  calamity  did  not  crush 


CULLING S  FROM  OFFICAL  PAPER  293 


departed  this  life.  Baptized  by  John  Wesley,  her  Methodist 
record  was  unimpeachable,  and  her  Christian  heroism  merits  this 
embalmment.  After  the  expulsion  of  her  venerable  husband  for 
his  advocacy  of  Reform,  she  addressed  the  following  note  to  the 
preacher  in  charge :  — 

Baltimore,  December  29,  1827. 
Rev'd  Sin  :  After  mature  deliberation,  and  with  the  most  poignant  feel- 
ings (at  the  cruel  and  unchristian  conduct  exhibited  toward  my  dear  hus- 
band, and  many  others)  I  am  under  the  painful  necessity  of  requesting  you 
to  withdraw  my  name  from  that  church  in  which  I  have  been  nurtured  from 
my  childhood  to  the  present  period,  and  a  member  thereof  forty-seven  years. 

Respectfully, 

Anna  G.  Chappell. 

A  great  revival  at  St.  John^s,  Baltimore.  Members  of  the  old 
Church  united  in  the  services.  It  continued  for  several  months. 
An  editorial  says:  ''Authority  to  act  for  the  whole  Church  on 
important  matters  ought  to  be  vested  somewhere.  We  have  lost 
much,  very  much,  from  the  want  of  this  desideratum.  This  lack 
can  be  supplied  by  the  General  Conference";  but,  as  already 
noticed,  it  was  not  supplied  until  1877.  Died  April  16,  1834, 
Eev.  Charles  Eoundtree  of  Virginia,  an  early  Reformer.  The 
fourth  volume  was  made  to  close  May  30,  1834,  a  period  of  six 
months.  The  General  Conference  had  authorized  the  Book  Com- 
mittee to  issue  proposals  for  a  new  paper,  to  be  called  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Journal,  under  the  editorship  of  Nicholas  Snethen 
and  Asa  Shinn,  provided  it  could  be  made  financially  safe.  The 
new  paper  appeared  June  11,  1834,  as  the  MetJiodist  Protestant, 
Snethen  and  Shinn  editors,  and  published  by  the  Book  Com- 
mittee, as  a  new  series.  Volume  I.,  No.  1.  Snethen  at  once  took 
charge,  but  Shinn  did  not  remove  to  Baltimore  until  the  autumn. 
The  salutatories  of  both  appear. 

these  devoted  men.  The  house  was  soon  rebuilt  through  the  sympathy  of  the 
community.  These  brethren  had  special  regard  to  the  religious  education  of  the 
colored  people,  and  the  spacious  galleries  were  set  apart  for  them,  and  they  were 
organized  under  class  leaders  of  their  own  color.  This  membership  of  the  church 
averaged  some  six  hundred  for  a  series  of  years,  and  what  is  noteworthy  is  the 
fact  that  after  the  disintegration  of  the  whites  as  a  congregation  and  the  loss  of 
the  property  these  colored  men  and  women  after  the  Civil  War,  which  set  them 
free,  preserved  their  own  Methodist  Protestant  organization,  built  a  house  of 
their  own,  and  exist  to  this  day  as  a  part  of  the  South  Carolina  Colored  Confer- 
ence. The  Maryland  Conference  which  supplied  the  white  church  for  a  number 
of  years,  ordained  one  of  the  colored  leaders,  Rev.  Francis  Brown,  whose  frequent 
visits  to  Maryland  at  the  Conference  time  were  occasions  of  renewed  fraternity. 
His  name  and  that  of  his  associate,  Rev.  E.  R.  Washington,  merit  perpetuation  in 
this  History. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


The  General  Conference  of  1834 ;  attendance ;  statistics ;  the  Book  Concern  and 
losses  under  Harrod  ;  moral  —  Snethen  and  Shinn  elected  editors  of  the  Balti- 
more paper ;  remarkable  prediction  of  Snethen  in  an  editorial  as  to  Lay- 
Representation  ;  digest  of  news  from  the  official  paper  —  The  Methodist  Corre- 
spondent in  its  sixth  and  last  volume ;  hard  times  and  salaries  of  preachers ; 
Stockton  to  prepare  a  new  hymn  book;  Shinn  alone  editor  of  the  paper; 
growth  of  Abolitionism;  recollections  of  the  writer  — Rev.  Dr.  Daniel  Davies 
editor  for  1836  ;  new  plan  for  the  Book  Concern;  how  it  was  pushed  ;  depletion 
of  the  churches  in  the  East  by  immigration  "West  —  Second  volume  under 
Davies;  pioneers  of  Reform  —  The  second  General  Conference,  1838;  roster  of 
members ;  statistics  —  Slavery  question  revived ;  compromise  at  this  Confer- 
ence through  Dr.  Brown;  Shinn's  decided  views;  complicated  with  a  move- 
ment to  remove  the  official  paper  to  Pittsburgh  —  T.  H.  Stockton  elected  editor 
of  a  "  free  "  paper ;  Book  Committee  interpose  and  Stockton  resigns ;  election 
of  E.  Yeates  Reese  — Plea  of  the  Book  Committee  in  their  defence;  the  case 
made  out. 

The  ratio  of  representation  having  been  fixed  at  one  of  each 
class  for  every  thousand  members,  it  kept  the  General  Conference 
of  1834  considerably  within  one  hundred,  and  as  there  were  a 
number  of  absentees,  the  body  was  comparatively  small.  The 
following  were  the  representatives  elected  to  the  first  General 
Conference,  which  assembled  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  May  6,  1834. 


Maryland 


Ministers 


Laymen 


John  S.  Reese 
Eli  Henkle 
William  C.  Lipscomb 
James  R.  Williams 


John  Chappell 
William  Quinton 
Thomas  Jacobs 


Philemon  B.  Hopper 


Pennsylvania 


John  Smith 


Jeremiah  Stull  i 


New  York 


Thomas  W.  Pearson 


James  Wood 


Champlaix 


No  representation 


No  representation 


1  Absent. 
294 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1834 


295 


Ministers 
Justis  Byingtoni 

James  Covel  i 
James  D.  Yates  i 
John  French  1 


Asa  Shinn 
Cornelius  Springer 
Charles  Avery- 
George  Brown 
John  Clarke 
J.  H.  Overstreeti 
Nicholas  Snethen 
Ashby  Pool  i 
Saul  Henkle 
James  Towler 


Vermont 


Genesee 


Laymen 
Solomon  Mason  i 


Sylvanus  Teher^ 


Massachusetts 


WilUam  Wyman 


Virginia 


J.  J.  Burroughs 


Ohio  and  Pittsburgh 


Thomas  McKeever 
Moses  Lyon  ^ 
John  W.  Philips  1 
W.  Disney  1 
Edward  Newton 
James  Barnes 
Walter  Forward  i 
Erastus  Hoskins  ^ 
T.  P.  Armstrong! 
Stephen  Bell 


North  Carolina 
William  Harris  Spier  Whitaker 


Charles  Evans 


James  Meeki 


Waiiam  B.  Elgin 


Georgia 


Alabama 


Tennessee 


R.  A.  Blount 


M.  Megee^ 


James  L.  Armstrong 


Forty -eight  in  all,  and  of  these  seventeen  were  absent.  Mary- 
land gave  half  its  ministerial  representation  to  the  unstationed 
ministers,  and  their  claims  were  respected  in  some  of  the  other 
Conferences.  The  body  was  harmonious,  electing  Nicholas 
Snethen,  President,  and  W.  C.  Lipscomb,  Secretary.   No  attempt 


1  Absent. 


296  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


was  made  to  alter  the  Constitution ;  the  Discipline  was  revised 
and  altered  in  minor  particulars,  so  well  had  the  Convention  of 
1830  done  its  work.  Fourteen  Annual  Conferences  were  recog- 
nized. A  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  located  in  Baltimore,  was 
constituted  of  twelve  persons,  S.  K.  Jennings,  Chairman.  Cham- 
plain  Conference,  recently  set  off  in  northern  jSTew  York,  was 
not  represented  and  no  statistics  furnished,  but  the  others  made 
the  following  exhibit:  Vermont,  800;  Boston,  300;  New  York 
and  Canada,  360;  Genesee,  1300;  New  York,  1600;  Pennsyl- 
vania, 1600;  Maryland,  4227;  Virginia,  1000;  North  Carolina, 
1500;  Tennessee,  1400;  Georgia,  1000;  Alabama,  1000;  Ohio, 
10,500.  Some  of  these  were  estimates  for  the  previous  year,  and 
are  mostly  in  round  numbers.  The  total  of  26,587  it  was  believed 
should  be  increased  to  a  round  number  of  28,000  by  adding  500 
ministers,  about  one-third  of  whom  were  itinerants,  500  for 
Champlain  and  other  omissions.  The  increase  was  unprecedented 
in  Methodism.  Taking  the  highest  estimate  for  1830  at  5000, 
it  shows  a  net  increase  of  nearly  600  per  cent  in  four  years. 
Perhaps  5000  secessions  from  the  old  Church  to  be  added  to  the 
first  3000  to  5000  of  1828-30,  indicating  some  20,000  conversions 
and  additions  in  the  quadrennium.  The  boast  of  the  General 
Conference  of  the  old  Church  in  1832  was  that  its  statistics  were 
in  evidence  that  it  had  not  only  recovered  the  full  loss,  but  had 
made  an  increase  of  some  10  per  cent  from  1828  to  1832,  and 
this  was  declared  the  irrefragable  evidence  that  the  Lord  favored 
their  "system  of  government,"  at  the  same  time  heralding 
the  mendacious  statement  that  Keform  was  "a  complete  fail- 
ure." Surely  here  is  reason  enough  that  the  history  of  these 
times  should  be  impartially  written,  as  no  amends  have  ever 
been  made  by  the  latest  of  Methodist  Episcopal  chroniclers  for 
these  misstatements. 

Bascom's  Declaration  of  Eights  was  appended  to  the  new  Disci- 
pline of  1834.  J.  J.  Harrod  made  known  the  fact  that  he  had 
expended  on  account  of  the  periodical  31000  more  than  he  had 
received,  though  there  were  $3000  of  subscriptions  due  him.  The 
publication  of  standard  works  already  named,  and  a  large  credit 
to  preachers  and  others,  compelled  him  to  decline  the  position  as 
publisher.  Despite  sanguine  business  views,  which  were  at  the 
bottom  of  this  miscarriage,  financial  losses  which  harassed  his 
closing  years,  no  one  more  fully  merits  the  meed  of  unstinted 
praise  than  this  upright  and  intrepid  man  of  whom  Dr.  Bond  said 
that  the  impairment  of  his  friendship  was  to  him  the  greatest 


NEW  ^'BOOK  CONCERN''  SCHEME 


297 


deprivation  of  the  Radical  controversy.  In  the  face  of  these 
warnings  James  R.  Williams  proposed  and  organized  a  joint-stock 
company  of  $20,000  to  establish  a  Book  Concern,  in  shares  of 
$50  each.  It  was  done,  with  an  eventual  outcome  of  almost 
total  loss  of  the  principal  to  the  subscribers,  who  had  been  secured, 
about  one-half  in  Baltimore,  and  the  remainder  through  the 
travelling  agency  at  different  times  of  T.  H.  Stockton,  Augustus 
Webster,  and  William  Kesley.  A  Book  Concern  was  one  of  the 
things  the  new  Church  must  imitate  in  the  old,  not  seeing  that 
such  a  corporation  in  the  old  Church  was  an  integer  of  a  hierarchy 
for  which  the  new  stood  in  no  need.  Private  enterprise  under 
safe  business  methods  would  have  furnished  all  necessary  litera- 
ture ;  but  to  this  day  the  other  policy  has  been  pursued,  happily 
without  the  scandal  which  has  overtaken  both  the  Book  Concerns 
of  the  old  Metliodisms  in  this  country  under  the  management  of 
ministers  untrained  to  business  and  open  to  a  serious  form  of 
temptation. 

Snethen,  with  Shinn  as  coadjutor,  edited  the  periodical  for  one 
year,  when  he  resigned,  as  the  financial  condition  did  not  en- 
courage the  expense  of  a  double-headed  editorship.  He  returned 
to  his  home  in  Indiana  to  renew  his  activity  in  other  directions. 
During  his  term  he  uttered  a  remarkable  prediction,  than  which 
nothing  seemed  more  improbable :  "  The  point  of  controversy  is 
reduced  to  a  unit  —  a  pure,  unmixed  question  of  representation. 
If  we  are  true  to  it,  if  we  glory  in  it,  it  must  finally  prevail  and 
proselyte  every  Methodist  in  the  United  States.  They  may  indeed 
remain  Episcopal  Methodists,  but  so  sure  as  we  are  not  moved 
away  from  our  high  calling,  the  whole  lump  will  be  leavened  into 
Representation  Methodists.  .  .  .  The  doctrine  of  representation 
is  just  as  true  and  just  as  plain  as  the  result  of  two  and  two.  It 
will  finally  convince  millions  as  well  as  thousands,  it  will  indeed 
convince  all  the  world."  This  was  not  only  the  courage  of  con- 
viction, but  the  prescience  of  a  rare  wisdom.  For  a  whole  gener- 
ation it  was  scouted  by  the  hierarchy  North  and  South ;  it  was 
ridiculed  as  an  impossibility  in  Methodism.  It  shall  be  made 
plain  how  nearly  it  has  been  literally  fulfilled  within  another 
generation;  and  ere  the  third  is  numbered,  in  both  the  letter  and 
the  spirit  it  may  be  accomplished.  Then  shall  tardy  justice  be 
done  William  S.  Stockton  and  Nicholas  Snethen;  it  will  be  the 
hoar  of  their  Methodistic  apotheosis. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  slavery  question  disturbed  the 
General  Conference  of  1834,  though  but  fifteen  of  the  thirty-one 


298  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


present  were  from  slave  states,  and  of  these  at  least  three  were 
conservative  antislavery  men  of  the  Maryland  delegation. 

January  12, 1835,  Andrew  Hunter,  a  devoted  Reformer  of  Cooks- 
town,  Pa.,  passed  to  his  reward.  December  15,  1834,  Reuben 
McDaniel,  of  Indiana,  died.  The  Correspondent  gives  space 
to  a  call  for  the  Ohio  Antislavery  Convention  at  Zanesville, 
April  22,  1835,  and  "  all  persons  who  advocate  the  righteous  prin- 
ciples of  Immediate  Emancipation  "  are  invited.  It  closed  its 
fifth  volume  much  indebted  to  Cornelius  Springer,  who  conducted 
and  edited  it. 

No  less  than  twelve  camp-meetings  were  announced  for  Mary- 
land alone  under  the  Conference  presidency  of  Dr.  John  S.  Reese 
during  the  summer  of  1834.  In  these  the  local  ministry  took 
conspicuous  part,  as  announced  in  the  Methodist  Protestant.  The 
following  sagacious  moralizing  in  it  must  not  be  lost:  "The 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  like  the  Jews,  committed  a  grave 
error.  The  latter  sought  to  destroy  Jesus  for  fear  he  might 
destroy  them;  the  former  sought  to  destroy  the  advocates  of 
representation,  lest  they  might  destroy  the  Church.  The  prin- 
ciple is  wrong  in  itself.  But  it  may  be  founded  in  error,  or  in 
prejudice,  or  in  passion,  or  in  mere  suspicion.  It  is  an  excess  of 
the  principle  of  self-defence,  and  has  proved  to  be  the  source  of 
half  the  wars  and  calamities  of  the  human  race.  Not  the  least 
of  its  evil  consequences  is  that  it  is  so  difficult  for  us  ever  again 
to  respect  or  love  those  whom  we  have  thus  injured  through  our 
unfounded  suspicions.  All  the  aspects  and  movements  of  Metho- 
dist representation  have  now  become  dreadful,  for  the  fear  that 
is  founded  upon  suspicion,  more  than  fear  founded  in  truth,  grows 
strong  by  habit."  It  needs  only  the  qualification  that  in  both 
cases  it  was  the  instigation  of  the  hierarchy  and  not  the  body 
of  the  people  that  did  it.  An  editorial  appears  from  Snethen 
noticing  the  new  aspect  of  antislavery  as  a  "National  Sin,"  and 
for  "Immediate  Emancipation."  It  is  conservative.  The  circu- 
lation of  the  official  paper  is  announced  as  1475.  Rev.  Thomas 
Cheeseman  died  August  26,  1835,  in  New  Jersey,  an  early  Re- 
former. Rev.  Miles  King,  a  Reform  itinerant  of  Virginia,  died 
September  17,  1834.  Rev.  Williamson  of  Georgia  departed  this 
life  June  11,  1834.  Baltimore  "Book  Company"  was  incorpo- 
rated by  the  General  Assembly  of  Maryland,  March  17,  1835. 
James  Whidness  of  Pennsylvania  departed  this  life  March  12, 
1835.  Snethen  published  his  work  on  lay-representation,  hitherto 
noticed.  These  are  excerpts  to  the  close  of  the  volume,  J une,  1835. 


WII,I,IAM  COLLIER. 


LAST  VOLUME  OF  METHODIST  CORRESPONDENT  299 

The  sixth  and  last  volume  of  the  Methodist  Correspondent  was 
edited  and  published  by  Cornelius  Springer  at  Zanesville,  0.  An 
exhibit  of  the  steward  of  the  Ohio  Conference  throws  light  upon 
the  meagre  support  received  by  the  itinerant  ministers  of  the  new 
Church  in  the  West,  the  only  qualification  being  that  the  whole 
country  was  now  in  the  toils  of  a  severe  financial  depression. 
The  aggregate  of  salaries  allowed  for  the  entire  District  was 
^5375.53,  apportioned  among  32  preachers  and  the  President, 
John  Clarke,  who  was  allowed  $400  and  received  $228.44.  The 
total  received  by  these  33  preachers  was  $3583.09,  showing  a 
deficit  of  $1888.50.  The  Conference  collection  and  the  Preach- 
ers' Aid  Society  contributed  $271.48,  which  was  distributed 
among  the  most  necessitous.  And  yet  these  devoted  men  labored 
on  for  Christ  and  Mutual  Eights.  A  monetary  crisis  in  the  ex- 
perience of  this  country  has  generally  had  the  effect  to  make  men 
serious,  and  religious  conditions  improved,  but  in  this  instance 
the  fact  is  patent  that  in  all  the  Churches  the  numerical  increase 
was  greatly  minified,  as  will  be  seen,  not  only  in  the  new  but  in 
the  old  Church,  and  in  other  denominations.  Peter  T.  Laishley 
appears  as  a  contributor  and  active  worker.  The  General  Con- 
ference of  1834  deputed  T.  H.  Stockton  to  compile  a  new  hymn 
book,  and  he  announced  that  he  hoped  to  finish  the  work  in  the 
spring  of  1836.  In  May  of  that  year  the  Agent,  John  Clarke, 
made  choice  by  purchase  of  the  Mount  Pleasant  Farm,  near  Law- 
renceburgh,  Ind.,  for  the  Literary  Institution  of  the  West, —  250 
acres,  135  arable,  —  for  $12,500,  or  $50  an  acre,  on  a  subscription 
of  $5000.  The  Ohio  Antislavery  Society  within  a  year  reported 
100  auxiliaries,  so  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  hastened.  A 
mob  in  Cincinnati,  August,  1835,  destroyed  the  press  of  the 
Philanthropist,  edited  by  Birney,  an  extreme  abolitionist.  John 
Burns  and  A.H.Bassett  grew  into  prominence  in  Church  work. 
College  buildings  were  proposed  for  the  Lawrenceburgh  farm, 
under  the  Presidency  of  Nicholas  Snethen,  October  30,  1836. 
The  last  number  of  the  Correspondent  was  dated  November  6, 
1836,  and  by  order  of  the  Ohio  and  Pittsburgh  Conferences  it 
was  removed  to  Wheeling,  Va.,  for  the  accommodation  of  Rev. 
D.  B.  Dorsey,  elected  editor  and  publisher,  to  be  printed  on  a 
super-royal  sheet  once  a  week.  Oliver  Wells,  an  original  Ee- 
former,  deceased  October  9,  1836.  These  are  the  salient  events 
of  the  closing  volume  at  Zanesville. 

The  Methodist  Protestant,  under  the  editorship  of  Asa  Shinn, 
"assisted  by  the  Book  Committee,"  began  June  10,  1835.  Shinn 


300 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


removed  to  Baltimore  and  took  charge.  So  scant  was  the  cour- 
tesy received  from  the  old  side  preachers  by  the  new  Church,  it 
was  deemed  worthy  of  special  mention  that  Rev.  Dr.  Olin,  Presi- 
dent of  Randolph-Macon  College  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  Va.,  while  in  Lynchburg  at  the  Virginia  Conference, 
attended  a  service  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  after 
sermon  by  another  he  offered  the  closing  prayer,  and  "prayed 
particularly  for  blessings  to  be  upon  our  church,  which  he  called 
a  tender  vine  of  the  Lord.'^  At  once  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  pious  of  the  ministry  of  the  old  Church,  his  soul  was  too 
large  for  narrow  bigotry,  and  though  of  Northern  birth  and  edu- 
cation, a  long  residence  in  the  South  attempered  his  views  and 
led  him  in  the  General  Conference  of  1844  to  exert  all  his  powers 
to  arrest  extreme  measures.  Notice  was  made  of  the  fact  that  the 
percentage  of  increase  in  the  new  Church  conferences  was  greatly 
reduced,  and  in  some  cases  none  at  all.  At  the  same  time  the 
Christian  Advocate  stated  that  within  the  bounds  of  such  leading 
Conferences  as  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York  they  had 
suffered  a  decrease  of  members.  July,  1835,  the  New  York 
'Methodist  Protestant  and  Conference  Journal  appeared,  folio,  semi- 
monthly. It  was  about  this  time  that  Rev.  Daniel  E.  Reese,  Sr., 
and  Rev.  John  Valiant  made  their  peace  with  the  old  Church  and 
returned,  which  led  the  press  of  that  Church  to  report  that  the 
Reform  cause  was  on  the  verge  of  dissolution  in  Baltimore.  It 
was  quietly  disposed  of  by  Shinn,  who  wielded  his  pen  with 
trenchant  courtesy. 

A  Convention  of  ministers  and  laymen  in  Lower  Canada  adopted 
with  some  changes  the  Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  new 
Church  and  called  a  Conference  to  meet  at  Dunham,  February, 
1836,  Lower  Canada.  Instigations  to  insurrection  among  the 
slaves  of  the  South  greatly  excited  that  section,  and  a  mass- 
meeting  was  called  at  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  Mass.,  to  protest 
against  such  measures,  while  deprecating  the  institution  as  such. 
The  commercial  interest  of  Boston  had  not  ceased  in  the  slave- 
trade,  but  was  fast  declining.  Both  Maryland  and  Virginia  took 
some  steps  looking  to  the  establishment  of  ''A  Literary  and  Sci- 
entific Manual  Labor  School."  September  9,  1835,  the  Book  Com- 
mittee say :  "  On  the  subject  of  slavery  and  abolition  we  intend  to 
be  silent,  for  reasons  that  must  on  all  hands,  we  think,  appear  to 
be  just  and  indispensable."  Rev.  William  McMasters,  an  early 
Reformer  of  New  York,  departed  tlii?  life  November  17,  1835. 
Proposals  were  made  for  the  Mutual  EigJits  and  Southern  Intelli- 


ANTI-SLAVERY  AGITATION  GROWING  301 


gencer,  to  be  published  at  Charleston,  S.  C,  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Georgia  Conference.  It  was  proposed  by  the  Pittsburgh  Con- 
ference to  remove  the  official  paper  to  the  city  of  Pittsburgh,  which 
was  answered  by  the  Book  Committee.  Eev.  Joab  W.  liagan  de- 
ceased October  3,  1835,  a  devoted  itinerant  Reformer  of  the  West. 
Shinn,  as  editor,  notices  a  resolution  of  the  Georgia  Conference 
requesting  the  official  paper  to  "declare  its  disapprobation  of 
Abolition,"  ^  in  which  he  calls  attention  to  the  action  of  the  Book 
Committee,  dissenting,  if  it  implicates  a  "  disposition  to  suppress 
truth  or  shrink  from  investigation."  It  led  to  differences  be- 
tween him  and  the  Committee,  coupled  with  intimations  that 
Shinn's  zeal  for  a  call  of  a  General  Conference  in  1838,  instead 
of  1841,  as  the  law  required,  and  of  which  he  was  largely  the 
author,  was  to  secure  a  removal  of  the  Book  Concern  to  Pitts- 
burgh. Pamphlets  were  issued  denying  and  affirming  on  both 
sides,  and  the  upshot  was  Shinn's  resignation  at  the  close  of  the 
volume  as  editor.  In  the  great  fire  in  New  York  the  Book 
Concern  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  almost  totally 
destroyed,  with  a  loss  of  $250,000.  The  Book  Concern  of  the 
new  Church  was  reported  to  be  in  good  condition,  and  the  Mary- 
land Conference  took  special  action  looking  to  its  support.  The 
New  York  Conference  paper  was  discontinued,  April,  1836.  The 
concluding  numbers  of  the  official  paper  were  filled  with  the  spe- 

1  The  writer,  then  a  youth  not  yet  in  his  teens,  was  an  eye-witness  to  the  burn- 
ing of  Pennsylvania  Hall,  in  his  native  city  of  Philadelphia,  by  a  mob  in  1838, 
growing  out  of  this  Abolition  question.  The  Friends  of  that  city  were  from  the 
first  pronounced  and  honest  antislavery  people,  and  were  never  complicated  with 
it  either  as  holders  of  slaves  or  as  commercially  interested  in  the  trade  as  was  the 
case  in  New  England.  Unfortunately,  perhaps,  they  fell  into  extremes  and  became 
not  only  abolitionists  favoring  immediate  emancipation  at  any  cost  and  with- 
out regard  to  personal  rights  of  others,  but  to  exhibit  their  sympathy  with  the 
colored  man,  advocated  what  was  afterward  known  as  miscegenation  or  inter- 
marriage of  the  races.  The  writer  remembers  distinctly  the  excitement  produced 
in  Philadelpliia  over  these  teachings  and  practices.  The  Pennsylvania  Hall  was 
built  by  them,  and  here  assemblies  of  both  races  were  held,  and  white  Quaker 
women  made  it  a  matter  of  defiant  pride  to  socially  entertain  and  be  escorted 
through  the  streets  by  colored  men,  and  in  some  cases  marriage  was  consum- 
mated. It  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  to  this  form  of  antislavery  that  the  South 
made  strenuous  objection,  while  the  incitement  to  insurrection  spread  alarm 
through  that  section.  On  the  other  hand  as  slavery,  as  a  purely  domestic 
institution,  its  least  objectionable  phase,  ceased  to  be  agriculturally  profitable  in 
the  so-called  Border  States,  the  mercenary  greed  of  holders  led  them  into  slave- 
breeding  for  a  more  southern  market,  the  most  offensive  phase  of  it,  and  thus  it 
too  became  aggressive,  demanding  its  right  to  new  territory  and  the  unmolested 
transit  with  such  servants  through  free  States.  If  there  was  lack  of  method  in 
the  madness  of  either  side  in  these  extremes,  the  whole  was  providentially  work- 
ing out  the  only  possible  ultimate. 


302 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


cial  General  Conference  discussion  involving  a  Book  Concern 
controversy  ending  in  criminations  and  recriminations,  and  not  a 
little  injury  to  the  general  Church.  "Laicus,"  W.  S.  Stockton; 
"Amicus,"  James  R.  Williams;  ''Lacidar,"  Augustus  Webster; 
Snethen  occasionally;  T.  H.  Stockton  as  travelling  Agent  for 
Book  Concern;  Shinn  as  "Bartimeus,"  as  well  as  editor, —  were 
the  principal  writers  for  this  volume. 

A  new  volume,  beginning  June  8,  1836,  flies  the  name  of  Rev. 
Daniel  Davies,  M.D.,  as  editor,  while  the  "Book  Committee" 
explain  their  relation  to  the  official  paper  as  set  by  the  General 
Conference  of  1834.  The  editor  was  a  young  man  of  the  Mary- 
land Conference,  of  exceptional  abilities,  sweet  disposition,  but 
feeble  health.  He  entered  upon  his  duties  under  favorable 
auspices.  He  was  unmarried,  and  this  was  one  of  the  reasons 
for  his  selection,  on  the  score  of  economy.  The  General  Con- 
ference of  the  old  Church  met  in  Cincinnati,  May,  1836,  and 
elected  Beverly  Waugh,  Wilbur  Fisk,  and  Thomas  A.  Morris, 
bishops.  Mason  and  Lane,  both  ministers,  were  appointed  agents 
of  the  Book  Concern,  following  precedents  before  and  since  to  the 
exclusion  of  laymen  trained  to  business.  Why?  The  decisions 
of  courts  of  law,  as  well  as  the  Discipline,  made  the  Book  Concern 
the  absolute  property  of  the  preachers  exclusively;  why  should 
they  not  manage  and  control  it  ?  Under  a  hierarchy  there  was 
no  reason,  and  the  General  Conferences  acted  accordingly,  with 
a  sequel  yet  to  be  revealed.^    Wilbur  Fisk  declined  for  the  second 

1  These  assertions  need  the  support  of  examples,  and  they  are  at  hand.  In  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  twenty  odd  years  ago,  their  Publishing  House 
at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  under  the  management  of  Rev.  Dr.  A.  H.  Redford,  developed 
a  scandal  of  misapplied  funds  and  unsettled  accounts  which  shadowed  the  name 
of  the  manager  to  the  close  of  life,  either  through  ignorance  of  right  business 
methods  or  weakness  of  character  in  yielding  to  temptation.  In  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  from  1858  to  1868  especially,  the  mismanagement,  to  call  it  by 
no  harsher  name,  was  something  almost  unprecedented.  As  in  the  Church,  South, 
ministers  have  controlled  with  almost  unamenable  freedom  the  immense  funds 
of  the  Book  Concern,  for  this  property  has  always  been  specially  claimed  as  be- 
longing exclusively  to  the  Itinerant  preachers.  On  the  election  of  Rev.  Dr.  Lana- 
han  assistant  Book  Agent  in  18G8,  his  Spartan  courage  and  Christian  honesty 
unearthed  a  long  series  of  misappropriation  of  funds  by  the  senior  Agent  and  his 
subordinates  of  which  he  should  not,  and  indeed  could  not,  have  been  ignorant. 
Yet  for  these  exposures  the  assistant  Agent  was  persecuted  with  all  the  crushing 
power  of  officialism,  with  rare  exceptions,  and  compelled  him,  as  late  as  18*.X),  in 
his  old  age  in  rebuttal  of  continued  insinuations  that  he  was  a  traducer  of  good 
men,  to  issue  an  expose  of  the  whole  unsavory  business.  The  animadversion 
made  in  both  these  cases  is  that  there  was  a  failure  by  the  ministerial  class  —  no 
others  were  allowed  to  touch  such  sacred  deposits  —  rigidly  to  investigate  and 
condignly  punish  the  real  offenders.    So  palpable,  however,  were  the  loose  busi- 


CUBRENT  EVENTS  IN  NEW  CHURCH 


303 


time  the  mitre;  his  fervent  piety  and  educational  tact  led  him 
to  decide  that  a  college  presidency  was  his  forte  and  province. 
Beverly  Waugh,  the  still-hunt  Reformer  of  1824-28,  received 
final  promotion  as  a  subservient  pervert.  Thomas  A.  Morris 
filled  the  episcopal  chair  with  credit  to  himself  and  honor  to  the 
Church,  with  mediocre  ability.  T.  H.  Stockton  for  several  years 
continued  his  blank  verse  contributions  of  rare  poetic  merit. 
Augustus  Webster  succeeded  him  as  travelling  Agent  for  the 
Book  Concern,  in  broken  health,  but  used  his  pen  frequently 
journalizing.  In  October,  1836,  Charles  Avery,  of  Pittsburgh, 
contributed  ^1000  to  Stockton  for  the  establishment  of  a  Book 
Concern.  It  was  munificent  for  that  day.  The  Olive  Branch,  a 
weekly  paper,  was  established  in  Boston,  Mass.,  July,  1836, 
auxiliary  to  the  cause  of  the  new  Church,  and  under  Eev.  T.  F. 
Norris  as  editor  and  proprietor  for  many  years  was  successfully 
managed,  and  buttressed  the  Church  in  the  East.  T.  H.  Stockton 
once  more  in  the  pastorate,  his  fame  filled  Maryland  and  else- 
where at  the  camp-meetings  as  the  most  eloquent  speaker  known 
since  Summerfield,  not  excepting  Bascom.  The  Western  emigra- 
tion was  a  cause  of  severe  depletion  to  the  new  Church  as  of  the 
old.  William  Collier,  now  springing  into  prominence,  reports 
from  Alexandria,  Va.,  that  131  had  removed  since  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Church,  April,  1829.  Rev.  Thomas  Taylor  of  Ken- 
tucky, an  early  Reformer,  deceased  April  24,  1836.  He  was  born 
in  Virginia,  1763.  The  Book  Committee  address  an  historical 
statement  to  all  the  Annual  Conferences.  E.  Yeates  Reese  makes 
contributions  in  prose  and  verse  to  the  paper.  The  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  in  Baltimore,  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  President, 
and  P.  S.  Chappell,  Secretary,  send  out  Rev.  David  James, 
colored,  and  a  small  company  from  the  neighborhood  of  Elkton, 
Md.,  as  superintendent  of  a  mission  at  Cape  Palmas,  Africa. 
A  public  meeting  was  held  at  Pitt  Street,  East  Baltimore,  on 
Sabbath,  30th  of  October,  1836,  of  a  deeply  affecting  character,  of 
which  the  editor  gives  a  three-column  account  in  the  November  16 

ness  methods,  if  not  covert  frauds  in  New  York,  that  the  General  Conference  of 
1872,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Book  Concern,  elected  a  layman  as 
assistant  Agent.  On  the  appearance  of  Dr.  Lanahan's  vindication,  again  the 
whispered  mandate  of  officialism  arrested  the  sale  of  the  book  in  quiet  ways 
known  only  to  the  class.  For  the  facts  in  this  case,  never  disproved,  and  scarcely 
admitting  of  denial,  see  the  work  referred  to :  The  Era  of  Frauds  in  the  Metho- 
dist Book  Concern  at  New  York,"  by  John  Lanahan,  D.D.,  1896.  Methodist 
Book  Depository,  118  East  Baltimore  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.  12mo.  307  pp. 
Cloth. 


304 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


number.^  William  Quinton,  an  early  Reformer,  died  in  Mary- 
land, October  19,  1836.  The  Virginia  Conference  resolved  to 
establish  a  Manual  Labor  College,  agents  appointed,  and  .^70,000 
asked  to  accomplish  the  work.  The  depletion  by  emigration  and 
other  causes  kept  the  statistics  of  some  of  the  Eastern  and  South- 
ern Conferences  at  zero  as  to  increase.  Thomas  Nicholson  of 
Halifax,  X.  C,  an  early  Reformer,  died  jSTovember  27,  183G. 
Rev.  James  R.  Lowery  of  the  Georgia  Conference,  an  original 
Reformer,  died  October  13,  1836.  Rev.  William  Pinnell  labored 
successfully  among  the  colored  ]oeople  under  encouragement  from 
the  Virginia  Conference.  The  first  Annual  Conference  of  Illinois 
was  opened  at  Alton,  October  25,  1836.  E.  M'Daniel,  President; 
preachers  appointed,  M.  T.  Johnson,  R.  Miller,  F.  Prather,  C. 
Howard,  M.  Osburn,  W.  H.  Collins,  George  Wheatly,  Thomas 
Bennett;  George  Brown,  missionary  in  the  northern,  and  Reddick 
Horn,  in  the  southern,  part  of  the  district.  James  Towler,  an 
original  Reformer  from  O'Kelly's  time,  and  prominent  in  Reform 
in  the  West  for  a  number  of  years,  departed  this  life  July  9, 
1836.  A  general  declension  in  religion  is  marked  in  all  the 
denominations;  business  is  depressed,  while  living  is  high,  flour 
$10  a  barrel  and  wheat  ^1.50  to  31.80  a  bushel.  The  Book 
Concern  is  in  straits  to  continue  the  official  paper  with  a  paid 
editor,  but  amid  it  all  the  brethren  are  struggling  to  build  new 
churches  and  pay  for  those  already  erected,  and  raise  a  support 
for  the  itinerants.  Thomas  K.  Witsel  succeeded  George  Thomas 
as  President  of  the  seventh  ]Srew  York  Annual  Conference,  and 
for  many  years  he  was  a  landmark  in  that  section.  It  met  in 
Albany.  Rev.  Joshua  Swift  of  North  Carolina,  an  early  Re- 
former, died  March  25,  1837.  The  volume  closed  financially 
embarrassed,  but  its  conduct  had  given  general  satisfaction ;  con- 
troversy was  excluded,  and  its  pacific  spirit  commended  it  to  all. 

The  next  volume,  with  Davies  as  editor,  opened  with  promise, 
William  Kesley,  travelling  Agent.  The  Ohio  Conference  takes 
a  stand  in  favor  of  the  Book  Concern  as  established  by  the 
General  Conference  in  Baltimore,  and  orders  its  encouragement. 
Snethen  resumes  his  pen  frequently  for  the  official  paper.  Thomas 
Latimer,  an  early  Reformer,  died  August  3,  1837,  at  Hampton, 
Va.  Elisha  Lott  writes  from  Mississippi,  one  of  the  earliest 
and  truest  of  Reform  ministers,  and  largely  the  father  of  the 

1  Nothing  more  is  known  of  this  missionary  enterprise;  it  miscarried,  and  the 
writer  recalls  a  tradition  of  forty  years  ago  that  the  existence  of  the  word  "  white  " 
in  the  Constitution  had  something  to  do  with  it. 


CURRENT  EVENTS  CONTINUED 


305 


new  cause  in  the  far  South.  James  R.  Williams  suggests  a 
method  for  a  General  Superintendency  of  four  of  the  Annual 
Conference  Presidents,  to  be  selected  by  the  ensuing  General 
Conference,  to  "act  in  rotation  as  corresponding  presidents," 
under  strict  limitations  as  to  magisterial  powers  ;  but  the  domi- 
nant idea  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  was  that  the  con- 
nectional  bond  of  travelling  Annual  Conference  presidents  was 
all  that  would  be  needed.  They  believed  in  an  episcopacy,  but 
of  the  diocesan  kind.  John  Chandler,  a  prominent  layman  of 
the  Alabama  district,  and  an  original  Reformer,  passed  away 
October  24,  1837.  The  Total  Abstinence  Temperance  resolutions 
of  these  early  Conferences  are  models  for  some  in  this  day;  they 
were  pronounced  and  prohibitory.  Rev.  Levi  R.  Reese  was  elected 
Chaplain  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  December  11,  1837. 
Rev.  Saul  Henkle,  an  original  Reformer,  brother  to  Moses  M. 
and  Eli,  departed  this  life  November  15,  1837.  A  call  appears 
from  Rev.  William  P.  Smith  and  Rev.  Lindsey  P.  Rucker  of  the 
Church  for  volunteer  missionaries  in  Texas,  with  its  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  Methodist  Correspondent  not  having 
materialized  as  proposed,  in  Wlieeling,  under  D.  B.  Dorsey,  the 
whole  West  reports  through  the  official  paper,  and  many  are  the 
glad  tidings  furnished  by  Brown,  Springer,  Ragan,  Dalby,  Bas- 
sett,  M'Guire,  while  all  the  old  writers  furbish  it  with  their 
freslily  nibbed  pens,  and  new  ones  contribute  their  maiden  efforts, 
—  names  that,  afterward,  grew  into  fame.  Snethen,  as  ''N.  S.," 
is  an  almost  weekly  contributor.  A  special  General  Conference 
having  been  called  by  the  necessary  two-thirds  of  the  Annual 
Conferences,  it  is  announced  for  Pittsburgh,  third  Tuesday  in 
May,  1838.  An  era  of  good  feeling  is  inaugurated,  revivals  are 
reported,  and  the  brethren  everywhere  join  in  the  slogan  —  for- 
ward !  The  Boston  Conference  asks  for  the  abolition  of  the  order 
of  Deacon.  The  fifty-second  number  of  the  volume  closed  July 
28,  1838,  with  a  valedictory  from  the  retiring  editor,  Dr.  Davies, 
who  accepted  the  pastorate  of  the  church  in  Charleston,  S.  C. 

The  second  General  Conference  assembled  in  the  First  church. 
Fifth  Avenue,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May  15,  1838.  The  following 
were  members :  — 


Boston 


Ministers 
Jolin  McLeish 


Laymen 
W.  Wyman 


Vermont 


John  Croker 


A.  McLaughhn 


VOL.  II — X 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
T.  W.  Pearson 
J.  L.  Ambler 


Michael  Burge 


A.  Woolston 


Thomas  H.  Stockton 
Luther  J.  Cox 
William  Kesley 
W.  C.  Lipscomb 


Dr.  Finney 

Samuel  B.  Harris 
R.  Blount 
Peyton  S.  Graves 
R.  W.  Morris 
W.  H.  Collins 


R.  W.  Johnston 
M.  M.  Henkle 
William  Disney 


A.  Shinn 
George  Brown 


New  York 


Champlain 


Genesee 


Pennsylvania 


Laymen 
William  Wood 
William  Stead 


Nathan  Green 


S.  Beecher 


W.  S.  Stockton 


Maryland 


John  Clark 
E.  Crutchley 
T.  C.  Brown 
J.  S.  Zeiber 


Virginia 


J.  M.  Smith 


North  Carolina 


Georgia 


Alabama 


Tennessee 


Illinois 


L.  H.  B.  Whitaker 


C.  Kennon 


Ohio 


Pittsburgh 


B.  S.  Bibb 


James  L.  Armstrong 


R.  A.  Shipley 


S.  Bell 

J.  J.  Amos 

M.  Lyon 


J.  Carey 
J.  Bell 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1838 


307 


Pittsburgh  {continued) 


Ministers 
J.  Elliot 


Laymen 
E.  Hoskins 
T.  McKeever 


C.  Springer 
E.  Woodard 

D.  B.  Dorsey 
C.  Avery 


J.  Barnes 
W.  Garrard 
B.  Connell 


It  will  be  observed  that  one-half  the  Maryland  ministerial 
delegation  is  given  to  the  unstationed  ministers,  as  in  1834,  and 
so  in  other  Conferences. 

Asa  Shinn  was  elected  President  and  T.  W.  Pearson,  Secretary. 
Nicholas  Snethen  was  present  as  an  honorary  member,  and  by 
special  vote  of  the  Conference  was  requested  to  deliver  a  sermon 
before  the  body.  The  principal  committees,  with  the  chairmen, 
were:  Executive,  M.  M.  Henkle;  Judiciary,  George  Brown; 
Missions,  William  H.  Collins;  Finance,  Moses  Lyon;  Means  of 
Grace,  John  Elliot;  Literary,  Luther  J.  Cox;  Theological,  Cor- 
nelius Springer;  Slavery  Question,  George  Brown.  There  were 
a  number  of  recommendations  for  changes  in  the  Constitution 
and  Discipline,  but  the  various  committees  made  conservative 
reports,  and  but  few  amendments  were  made.  The  time  of  Gen- 
eral Conference  was  changed  from  "  seven  "  to  four  years.  The 
proposition  of  the  Book  Committee  to  establish  a  Book  Concern, 
with  a  capital  of  f 20, 000,  to  be  located  in  Baltimore,  with  a 
weekly  periodical  of  improved  form,  was  finally  agreed  to,  and 
the  following  named  as  the  Book  Committee :  James  R.  Williams, 
Samuel  K.  Jennings,  John  Chappell,  John  Clark,  Dr.  Francis 
Waters,  Luther  J.  Cox,  Philip  S.  Chappell,  Beale  H.  Bichardson, 
and  the  superintendents  of  Baltimore  city  and  East  Baltimore 
stations.  The  name  of  the  periodical  was  now  changed  to  the 
Methodist  Protestant  and  Family  Visitor,  and  Thomas  H.  Stockton 
elected  editor.  The  new  hymn  book  compiled  by  T.  H.  Stockton 
was  approved  as  the  hymn  book  of  the  Church,  and  was  soon 
thereafter  issued  from  the  press  and  was  used  by  the  churches 
for  twenty  years.  The  Illinois  Annual  Conference  was  recog- 
nized, and  a  new  one  in  Arkansas  and  in  New  Jersey,^  making 

1  The  action  was  as  follows :  "  On  motion  of  brother  Woolston,  Resolved,  that 
all  those  parts  of  New  Jersey  south  of  the  New  York  district,  be  constituted  a 
district  to  be  called  the  New  Jersey  district."  It  was  adopted,  but  it  had  no 
representative  in  the  General  Conference  of  1842,  and  so  could  not  have  material- 
ized as  a  district  separate  from  the  New  York.  Its  organization  occurred  later, 
as  will  be  seen. 


308  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


sixteen  in  all.  The  proceedings  of  the  General  Conference  are 
included  in  twenty-eight  pages  as  officially  printed,  and  are 
meagre  in  details.  The  members  as  reported  are  as  follows: 
Vermont,  532;  Boston,  300;  Champlain,  505;  Genesee,  1000; 
New  York,  1780;  Pennsylvania,  1272;  Maryland,  4012;  Virginia, 
1233;  North  Carolina,  1858;  Tennessee,  1400;  Georgia,  1076; 
Alabama,  1000;  Ohio,  3900;  Pittsburgh,  7280;  Illinois,  500; 
Charleston,  S.C.,  station,  300.  Total,  27,948.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  percentage  of  increase  for  the  quadrennium  was 
small,  if  any,  and  would  have  been  alarming  if  the  old  Church 
and  other  denominations  could  have  made  at  the  time  a  better 
showing.  Unhappily  for  the  cause  of  religion,  a  combination  of 
adverse  conditions  stagnated  the  churches,  depressed  the  country, 
and  cast  a  gloom  over  the  land.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  1836  showed  so  small  an  increase  for  the  whole  denomination, 
punctuated  with  actual  losses  in  not  a  few  Conferences,  that  the 
Episcopal  Address  called  for  humiliation  and  prayer  over  it. 

The  Slavery  Question  could  not  be  suppressed  at  this  Confer- 
ence. Held  in  the  West,  with  a  majority  of  the  delegates  anti- 
slavery  in  sentiment,  a  deep,  underlying  conviction  in  the  opposite 
sections  that  it  would  not  be  left  where  the  Church  Constitution 
had  put  it;  a  civil  as  well  as  moral  question  that  could  not  be 
settled  by  Church  legislation;  and  above  all  the  pressure  of  the 
abolitionists,  so-called,  upon  the  more  conservative  antislavery 
element  of  the  free  States,  precipitated  action  of  some  sort,  to 
satisfy  if  possible  the  manifestoes  against  the  Southern  institu- 
tion. It  was  the  half-concealed  cause  of  the  Book  Concern  con- 
troversy and  the  effort  to  remove  it  and  the  periodical  from 
Baltimore  to  Pittsburgh,  and  it  was  rapidly  engendering  ill-will 
and  ecclesiastical  strife  in  the  new  Church.  Various  motions 
were  made  in  the  General  Conference,  and  the  subject  was  dis- 
cussed for  two  days,  Asa  Shinn  being  the  protagonist  of  the  anti- 
slavery  section  of  the  body.  The  result  of  the  debate  and  the 
manoeuvring  of  the  leaders  on  both  sides  was  the  reference  of  the 
question  to  the  Annual  Conferences  and  the  primary  assemblies 
of  the  people  for  decision.  It  was  in  fact  a  compromise,  which 
left  it  where  it  was  found  when  the  debate  began.  It  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  reports  in  the  official  paper,  and  the  General 
Conference  proceedings  as  published  gave  nothing  but  the  result- 
ing resolution.  A  few  weeks  after  the  adjournment  Shinn 
availed  himself  of  the  Christian  Witness,  a  Baptist  paper  then 
issued  in  Pittsburgh,  to  sum  up  the  issue  as  he  understood  it, 


THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  FOREMOST 


809 


and  in  it  voiced  the  opinion  of  the  North  and  West.  Even  now 
it  will  be  seen  he  does  not  lose  his  judicial  judgment:  "The  com- 
mittee [Brown,  Chairman]  reported  against  slavery;  and  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  their  report  was  discussed  in  open  Conference  for 
two  days,  in  the  presence  of  a  large  number  of  intelligent  spec- 
tators. This  was  all  clear  gain  to  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, and  was  itself  of  more  value,  probably,  than  any  other 
official  action  of  the  Conference.  We  at  first  desired  an  official 
testimony  of  the  General  Conference  against  slavery.  But  the 
resolution  leaving  the  matter,  for  the  present,  with  the  Annual 
Conferences,  and  with  the  people  in  their  primary  assemblies, 
will,  it  is  thought,  promote  the  cause  of  liberty  more  than  would 
such  official  testimony  at  the  present  time,  and  in  the  present 
state  of  the  public  mind."  That  is,  the  brethren  cooperating 
with  him  were  content  with  so  much  expedient  gain,  not  intend- 
ing that  the  compromise  should  last  on  their  part  longer  than 
might  be  necessary  as  a  fulcrum  for  future  operations,  and  in 
this,  perhaps,  displayed  politic  finesse  and  mental  reservation; 
but  when  he  comes  to  make  a  personal  deliverance,  with  prophetic 
sagacity  and  outspoken  candor  says :  "  Every  man  in  the  nation 
must  take  his  stand  on  the  side  of  liberty  or  on  the  side  of  slavery. 
The  signs  of  the  times  are  portentous,  and  will  become  more  so. 
The  day  is  approaching  when  every  man  will  find  that  he  cannot 
occupy  neutral  ground;  and  it  is  better  to  take  a  deliberate  and 
firm  ground  before  the  full  power  of  the  storm  appears.  The 
liberty  of  the  world  and  the  happiness  of  the  human  race  are  at 
stake.  At  such  a  time  and  in  such  a  contest  indecision  would  be 
imbecility,  and  cowardice  would  be  a  crime.  Almighty  God  is  on 
the  side  of  righteousness  and  freedom."  ^ 

As  to  the  Book  Concern  complication  Dr.  Brown  says :  "  That 
night  [of  the  day  the  compromise  was  passed]  we  had  a  session 
in  view  of  acting  on  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Church 
paper.  That  report  being  read.  Dr.  Armstrong  of  Tennessee 
offered  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  all  matter  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  be  excluded  from  its  columns.  Then  followed  one  of  the 
most  excoriating  discussions  that  I  ever  remember  to  have  heard  in 

any  deliberative  body  on  the  subject  of  slavery.    Judge  H  of 

Ohio  did  battle  for  the  South.  .  .  .  Shinn  then  replied  to  the 
whole  in  a  speech  of  great  power."  "All  this  time,"  continues 
Dr.  Brown,  "  the  discussion  proceeded  upon  the  supposition  that 
the  General  Conference  had  full  power  over  the  question  at 


1  Bassett's  "  History,"  pp.  136, 137. 


310  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


issue/'  and  after  various  efforts  tie  secured  the  floor  to  remind 
the  Conference  that  Article  X.  of  the  Constitution  settled  the 
matter, —  "no  rule  shall  be  passed  infringing  the  liberty  of  speech 
or  of  the  press,"  etc. ;  "the  press  with  us,"  said  Brown,  in  com- 
ment, "  is  constitutionally  free,  and  this  body  has  no  power  to 
make  it  otherwise."  ^  And  then  followed  another  compromise,  as 
it  was  thought,  both  sides  construing  for  themselves.  Quiet 
ensued,  and  Dr.  Armstrong  withdrew  his  resolution.  Dr.  Brown 
farther  says :  "  It  was  now  conceded  that  the  freedom  of  the  press 
implied  that  at  least  all  official  documents  must  be  published, 
while  communications  by  individuals  should  come  under  the 
editor's  discretionary  control."  The  brethren  of  the  East  and 
South  exercised,  perhaps,  the  same  politic  finesse  and  mental 
reservation,  not  intending  that  the  "  free  press  "  of  the  Church 
should  be  construed  otherwise  than  as  giving  the  Book  Committee 
discretionary  power  to  decide  what  would  constitute  "  an  abuse 
of  liberty  "  of  speech  and  the  press,  as  the  same  Article  provided. 
Dr.  Brown  continued:  "On  the  following  Monday  Thomas  H. 
Stockton  was  elected  editor  of  our  free  Church  paper.  In  view, 
therefore,  of  the  premisses,  brother  Stockton  went  on  to  Balti- 
more, to  enter  upon  the  duties  of  his  office.  But  on  his  arrival 
he  had  the  mortification  to  find  that  on  the  slave  question  the 
Book  Committee,  right  in  the  teeth  of  the  Constitution,  and  over 
the  action  of  the  General  Conference,  had  gagged  our  Church 
paper  !  "  ^ 

This  was  the  decision  of  the  Book  Committee,  right  or  wrong, 
and  abstractly,  perhaps,  more  wrong  than  right,  but  it  was 
claimed  that  such  a  decision  was  unavoidable  as  a  matter  of  life 
or  death  to  the  paper  and  the  Book  Concern.  While  it  was  true, 
as  alleged,  that  it  was  difficult  to  continue  old  or  secure  new  sub- 

1  No  doubt  can  be  entertained  of  this  truth.  But  unfortunately,  both  in  State 
and  Church,  as  all  precedents  and  decisions,  however  professedly  "judicial," 
show,  what  is  "  Constitutionally  settled  "  depends  on  a  partisan  view  of  it.  For 
clear  as  is  Dr.  Brown's  utterance  it  is  not  clearer  than  that  "  Constitutionally  " 
the  slavery  question  was  settled  by  the  Convention  of  1830,  relegating  it  to  the 
Annual  Conferences,  and  forbidding  ecclesiastical  interference  with  the  civil 
authorities  and  the  civil  laws  in  construing  moral  questions,  and  so  providing  for 
separation  of  Church  and  State.  Dr.  Brown  then,  and  for  years  afterward,  com- 
promised on  this  basis,  and  he  equally  inteilded  his  compromise  of  1838  on  a  Free 
Press  to  be  a  peace  measure,  but  his  comments  upon  it  as  given  were  made  a 
year  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  "War,  18f36,  which  brushed  aside  things  "constitu- 
tionally settled,"  and  settled  them  providentially  right,  the  only  way  any  moral 
question  can  be  finally  settled. 

2  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  pp.  274-276. 


BOOK  DIRECTORY  AND  A  FREE  PRESS 


311 


scriptions  in  the  North  and  West  for  the  periodical  because  of  its 
neutral  ground  on  slavery,  it  was  also  true  that  any  other  ground 
could  not  be  occupied  and  retain  old  or  secure  new  subscribers  in 
the  East  and  South.  Not  only  did  the  Conferences  of  the  free 
states  pass  resolutions  against  slavery,  but,  taking  advantage  of 
the  "free  press,"  denunciatory  language  of  the  extremest  type 
was  used  in  lengthy  argumentative  form  in  these  resolutions,  so 
that  there  was  to  the  Book  Committee  the  same  difficulty  in  dis- 
criminating against  "  official "  and  individual  communications  on 
the  subject.  In  fine,  it  was  simply  one  of  the  phases  of  the 
"irrepressible  conflict,"  now  on,  and  in  relation  to  which  either 
party  in  the  new  Church  acted  according  to  the  best  light  and 
conscience  then  possessed.  It  needs  to  be  repeated,  however, 
that  while  the  slavery  question  was  the  principal  occasion  of 
Stockton's  resignation,  his  interview  with  the  Book  Committee 
made  manifest  what  has  been  already  alleged,  that  neither  father 
nor  son  could  be  brought  to  agree  to  any  kind  of  censorship  of 
their  editorial  work,  while  the  committee  having  the  financial 
responsibility  insisted  upon  reasonable  supervision.  They  elected 
Eli  Yeates  Reese  as  editor,  a  young  member  of  the  Church  in 
Baltimore,  of  rising  literary  fame  and  religious  character.  And 
in  evidence  that  there  was  nothing  personal  or  partisan  in  the 
supervision  they  claimed  over  Stockton,  they  exercised  it  not 
long  after  upon  their  own  choice  of  an  editor  by  administering  a 
censure  through  the  paper  to  Reese,  for  brusque  and  unbecoming 
conduct  officially  toward  the  venerable  Alexander  McCaine  in  a 
matter  between  them  of  newspaper  comity.  The  case  of  the  new 
Church  as  a  whole  in  its  relation  to  slavery  was  aptly  described 
in  a  homely  illustration  Thomas  Jefferson  gave  of  the  relation  of 
the  States  and  the  Federal  government  to  the  same  question: 
"  We  have  the  wolf  by  the  ears,  and  can  neither  hold  on  nor  let 
go."^  The  General  Conference  adjourned  after  a  session  of  fif- 
teen days. 

iRev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  in  a  critical  review  of  this  History  in  Ms.,  fur- 
nishes the  following  note :  "  The  Protestant  was  mainly  supported  by  the  South, 
and  these  antislavery  communications  would  have  been  condemned  as  incendiary 
by  the  legal  authorities  and  denied  circulation,  as  the  New  York  Christian  Advo- 
cate was  by  the  Court  of  Accomac  County,  Va.,  in  1843,  or  1844.  So  the  Book 
Committee  had  to  decide  between  a  paper  or  no  paper." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


The  official  organ  in  1838 ;  Stockton  after  an  interview  with  the  Book  Committee 
declined  his  election  by  the  General  Conference ;  causes ;  result  —  Passing 
events  — 1839  a  year  of  great  prosperity  to  the  new  Church  and  the  official 
organ  —  Dr.  Bond  reelected  editor  of  the  Christian  Advocate ;  reasons  for  it ; 
his  course  extreme  —  Sketch  of  T.  H.  Stockton's  career  —  Lawrenceburgh 
College  burned  —  New  York  Luminary  established  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers 
now  increasing —  Olive  Branch  of  Boston  —  E.  Yeates  Reese,  editor  at  Balti- 
more ;  synopsis  of  news  — Third  General  Conference  in  Baltimore,  1812  ;  list  of 
members;  its  doings;  another  compromise  on  the  slavery  question  —  Revivals 
—  Dr.  Bond  rampant  —  Dr.  Webster's  Presidency  of  the  Maryland  Conference 
in  1812-43;  Levi  R.  Reese  his  successor;  Webster  sent  to  St,  John's;  division 
on  the  pew  question ;  Maryland  Conference  grants  a  "  mission  "  relation  to  it; 
brief  story  of  this  calamitous  contention. 

The  official  organ,  as  reconstructed,  appeared  August  4,  1838, 
as  a  super-royal  folio  sheet  of  four  pages :  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant and  Family  Visitor.  The  Book  Committee  placed  it  in  direct 
charge  of  a  sub-committee  of  three :  Beale  H.  Kichardson,  Philip 
S.  Chappell,  laical,  and  Andrew  A.  Lipscomb,  clerical.  The 
restrictive  resolution  of  the  Book  Committee  excluded  person- 
alities, heterodoxy,  and  abolition,  or  slavery;  the  associated 
items  have  the  appearance  of  riders,  the  objective  being  to  shut 
out  the  slavery  agitation.  The  interview  of  the  Committee  with 
T.  H.  Stockton  as  to  the  editorial  management  proving  unsatis- 
factory to  both  parties,  he  resigned  for  reasons  already  given,  and 
which  he  subsequently  accentuated  as  "the  violent  undoing  of 
the  arrangement  made  by  the  General  Conference  of  1838,"  etc.^ 
Meanwhile  the  sub-committee  issued  the  paper,  and  these  items 
are  noted:  Rev.  Augustus  Webster  published  "Words  to  the 
Thoughtful,"  a  small  volume  of  religious  essays.  Rev.  John 
Elliot  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  and  pastor  of  the  Pittsburgh 
First  Church,  departed  this  life.  Rev.  John  B.  Tilden,  M.D., 
deceased  July  21,  1838,  at  Newton,  Frederick  County,  Va.  He 
was  born  in  Philadelphia,  December  9,  1762.  A  student  at 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  he  enlisted  in  the  Revolutionary  Army,  and 
attained  the  rank  of  captain  at  its  close.  In  1783  he  settled  in 
Newton,  Va.,  studied  medicine,  and  secured  a  large  practice. 

1  Methodist  Recorder,  March  4,  1852. 
312 


DEARBORN  COLLEGE — WESTERN  RECORDER  313 


Converted  at  Martinsburg,  Va.,  in  1787,  he  united  with  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  soon  became  a  local  preacher 
and  active  worker.  He  was  elected  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  and 
High  Sheriff  of  the  county.  He  early  embraced  the  principles 
of  Keform,  and  was  a  contributor  to  the  Mutual  Rights,  etc. 
Cited  to  trial  for  his  connection  with  it,  he  was  refused  the 
privilege  of  reading  his  defence,  whereupon  he  arose,  left  the  trial 
room,  and  announced  that  he  would  read  the  defence  from  the 
first  doorsteps  he  met,  when  nearly  the  entire  congregation  fol- 
lowed him.  He  assisted  in  organizing  the  Virginia  Conference 
of  the  new  Church  in  1829.  As  a  preacher  he  was  of  noble  and 
dignified  bearing,  and  a  profound  and  earnest  expounder  of  the 
Word  of  God;  of  holy  life  and  spotless  character.  He  was  buried 
at  Newton,  where  he  had  lived  for  half  a  century. 

The  Address  of  the  General  Conference,  George  Brown  and 
Charles  Avery,  committee,  appeared.  Dearborn  College,  Law- 
renceburgh,  0.,  was  dedicated,  and  the  institution  entered  upon 
its  active  career  under  the  Presidency  of  Nicholas  Snethen. 
When  the  action  of  the  Book  Committee  became  known  in  the 
West  and  North,  great  indignation  was  expressed  at  the  breach 
of  faith,  and  a  demand  made  for  the  inauguration  of  a  Western 
paper,  through  which  the  vexed  question  could  be  discussed; 
and  both  the  Ohio  and  the  Pittsburgh  Conferences,  at  their  ensu- 
ing autumn  assembly,  took  action,  and  Cornelius  Springer  was 
engaged  to  establish  and  edit  it  at,  or  near,  Zanesville,  O.,  he  to 
assume  the  pecuniary  responsibility,  but  the  Conferences  to  pledge 
their  support.  The  first  number  did  not  appear,  however,  until 
July  18,  1839,  or  three  years  after  the  suspension  of  the  Metho- 
dist Correspondent.  Its  title  was  the  Western  Recorder,  and  was 
a  four-page  folio  sheet  of  good  appearance  and  well  conducted. 
The  first  number  rehearses  the  reasons  for  its  inauguration,  and 
the  plan  on  which  it  would  be  continued.  October  20,  1838,  the 
official  paper  announced  Eli  Yeates  Reese  as  editor,  and  he  took 
charge  with  that  number.  He  had  the  intellectual  equipment, 
and  was  unmarried,  so  that  the  Book  Committee  incurred  but  a 
minimum  of  expense.  November,  1838,  H.  B.  Bascom  lectured 
and  preached  in  Baltimore,  but  not  in  Eeform  churches.  Another 
great  revival  occurred  at  St.  John's,  Baltimore,  continuing  seven 
weeks,  with  a  large  number  of  conversions.  May  11,  1839,  the 
New  York  Luminary,  a  Conference  local  paper,  was  announced. 
Rev.  J.  L.  Ambler,  editor.  It  was  a  small  four-page  folio  of 
good  typographical  make-up. 


314 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


A  sarcastic  query  was  started  in  the  old  side  press  as  to  the 
results  of  Methodist  Reform,  which  crystallized  into,  "What 
have  you  done?"  ''Zenas,"  in  the  official  paper  for  July  13, 
1839,  makes  such  apt  answer  that  it  may  be  given  space  as  cover- 
ing the  extraneous  effects  of  the  existence  of  the  new  Church  for 
the  first  decade  of  its  history,  demonstrating  that  while  reform 
from  within  hierarchic  and  autocratic  systems  is  hopeless, 
reform  from  without  is  sure  to  ensue.  "  And  can  any  one  ask 
seriously.  Has  this  Eeform  effected  anything?  Look  at  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  alone,  and  in  the  short  space  of 
scarcely  ten  years,  what  changes  have  taken  place,  not  so  much 
in  her  written  Discipline,  as  in  her  administration  policy;  and, 
to  some  extent,  the  spirit  of  her  power  is  broken,  —  she  is  now 
content  to  exercise  a  more  scriptural  government  over  her  wide 
domain ;  what  mildness  has  usurped  the  place  of  command,  what 
leniency  in  view  of  positive  dictation;  her  conferences  now  sit 
with  open  doors,  and,  though  denied  by  her  law,  her  members 
have,  to  some  limited  extent,  a  self -constituted,  irresponsible 
lay -representation  in  attendance  at  her  sessions,  some  official 
members  to  say  who  we  will  have  and  who  we  will  not  have; 
what  we  will  do  and  what  we  will  not  do ;  and  are  they  not  heard, 
and  the  Church  to  which  they  are  attached  through  them  re- 
spected and  regarded;  and  has  it  not  often  occurred  since,  that 
churches  have  been  built,  and  members  have  held  their  right  to 
their  own  property,  without  reproof  or  admonition;  and  how 
different  the  trials  of  her  members,  besides  many  other  important 
and  minor  changes  not  now  enumerated;  and  has  not  the  tone  of 
that  Church  widely  changed  as  regards  its  overweening  preten- 
sions, and  its  overstrained  prerogative.  Are  not  these  things 
so?  He  that  runs  may  read  and  understand  them,  so  clear  and 
so  glorious  has  this  reform  been."  But  for  many  years  nothing 
was  so  studiously  avoided,  officially  and  non-officially,  as  the 
semblance  of  credit  to  the  new  Church  for  these  quiet,  reflex 
changes  in  the  old. 

The  year  1839  was  one  of  great  prosperity  to  the  new  Church, 
revivals  were  frequent  in  every  section,  and  a  large  ingathering 
was  made,  and  in  this  prosperity  the  official  organ  and  the  West- 
ern paper  shared,  so  that  a  favorable  outlook  took  the  despondent 
one  of  a  few  years  before.  Yet,  on  the  heel  of  it  came  the  sus- 
pension of  specie  payment  by  the  banks  of  Xew  York,  Philadel- 
phia, and  Baltimore,  and  a  correspocding  business  depression. 
October  13.  on  Sabbath  at  9  p.m.,  near  Norfolk,  Va.,  that  noble 


CHURCH  PROSPERITY  IN  1839 


315 


man  of  God  and  Christian  hero,  Kev.  John  French,  M.D.,  passed 
to  his  reward.  A  generation  afterward  the  writer,  in  company 
with  Rev.  Dr.  L.  F.  Cosby,  visited  his  grave  in  the  Norfolk 
cemetery,  and,  pushing  back  the  grass  and  weeds  that  grew  over 
the  memorial  slab  covering  his  remains.  Dr.  Cosby  moralized 
over  one  of  Nature's  noblemen.  His  memory  should  be  kept 
green  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.^  Another  great  re- 
vival occurred  at  St.  John's,  Baltimore,  January  16,  1840.  The 
Methodist  Protestant  Banner  appeared  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  a  small 
monthly  sheet,  in  the  interest  of  the  Georgia  Conference,  Janu- 
ary, 1840.  The  first  South  Carolina  Conference  convened  De- 
cember 26,  1839,  as  set  off  from  the  Georgia.^  Rev.  Nathan 
Bangs,  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  invidiously 
attacked  the  new  Church,  April  18,  1840,  which  led  the  editor  of 
the  official  paper  to  declare,  after  summarizing  18  annual  Con- 
ferences, 200  itinerant  ministers,  and  rising  50,000  members, 
"  that  in  the  history  of  Protestant  churches  we  challenge  an  in- 
stance of  greater  success."  Bangs  was  led  to  his  review  by  the 
fact  that  as  the  General  Conference  of  the  old  Church  of  1840 
drew  near,  numerous  memorials  and  petitions  appeared,  asking 
for  representation  in  the  body,  but  always  with  distinct  disavowal 
that  what  they  asked  had  any  kinship  with  "radicalism." 

The  official  animus  of  that  Church,  however,  toward  the  move- 

iDr.  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  p.  350,  for  a  full  and  merited  sketch  of  this 
great  and  good  man.  It  was  the  writer's  first  plan  to  incorporate  elaborate 
sketches  of  these  founders  in  the  running  text  of  this  History,  but  it  would 
have  necessitated  a  third  octavo  volume.  The  reader  who  would  be  fully  posted 
should  have  at  command  Colhouer's  "  Sketches,"  though  a  number  of  worthy 
men  are  unrecorded  from  the  difficulty  of  securing  material.  The  writer  repeats 
that  this  volume  should  be  revised,  enlarged,  and  republished  in  the  higher  inter- 
ests of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church. 

2  It  convened  in  the  Academy  at  Mechanics ville,  S.  C.  James  Newberry  was 
elected  the  first  President,  and  G.  M.  Keils,  Secretary.  The  following  preachers 
were  enrolled:  T.  G.  Clayton,  A.  G.  Brewer,  J.  A.  Russell,  Alexander  McCaine, 
James  Newberry,  H.  T.  Arnold,  R.  M.  Maulden,  S.  E.  Norton,  S.  H.  Miller  (licen- 
tiate). The  delegates  were :  O.  B.  Hillard,  J.  E.  Walker,  G.  M.  Keils,  J.  A.  Hines, 
Thomas  Boone,  A.  Galloway,  A.  Machaen,  W.  Kirkpatrick,  A.  Smith.  The  mem- 
bers reported  were  for  Charleston  city  station,  757;  for  Sumpter  circuit,  44;  for 
Abbeyville  circuit,  70;  for  Pickens,  80;  a  total  of  951.  Of  the  number  reported 
from  Charleston  more  than  half  were  colored,  but  they  are  returned  without  dis- 
crimination on  that  account,  and  were  counted  for  suffrage  purposes,  though  not 
voters  themselves,  as  was  the  case  under  the  civil  Constitution  of  the  country  in 
the  South.  A  Superannuated  and  a  Temperance  society  were  organized  of  the 
Conference  members.  Though  Charleston  for  many  years  was  supplied  by  the 
Maryland  Conference  and  provisionally  recognized  as  a  part  of  it,  the  South  Caro- 
lina Conference  has  perpetuated  its  existence  under  the  most  serious  hinderances 
to  this  day,  though  confined  largely  to  its  original  limits. 


316 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ment  was  little  less  unfriendly  than  in  1827-30.  The  editor  of 
the  Pittsburgh  (Methodist)  Journal,  repelling  a  report  that  his 
Conference  had  joined  in  a  petition  for  lay-rights,  uses  the  choice 
parallel  that  it  was  impossible,  inasmuch  as  radicalism  once  in- 
fected it,  and  "  radicalism  is  like  the  small-pox,  those  who  have 
once  had  it  never  get  it  the  second  time."  ^  It  is  coincident  that 
these  petitions  were  addressed  to  a  General  Conference,  which 
met  in  Baltimore,  May,  1840,  the  very  seat  of  the  radical  contro- 
versy. The  petitions  were  referred  to  a  committee,  but  nothing 
came  of  them.  It  was  at  this  Conference  that  Thomas  E.  Bond, 
M.D.,  was  elected  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate, 
partly  as  a  reward  for  his  services  in  the  old,  and  specially  because 
believed  to  be  the  best  equipped  to  cope  with  this  new  outbreak 
of  Eeform.  Besides,  the  division  of  1844  was  foreshadowed  by 
the  astute  leaders,  and  it  was  good  policy  to  have  at  the  official 
helm  a  man  of  his  peculiar  qualifications.  He  proved  himself 
worthy  of  the  trust  thus  reposed  in  him  and  made  himself  at 
once  the  best  loved  and  the  best  hated  official  of  the  Church.  In 
after  years,  his  friends  flattered  him  with  the  laudation,  "the 
hero  of  a  hundred  battles."  During  the  Conference  the  pulpits 
of  the  new  Church,  three  in  number,  were  put  at  the  disposition  of 
their  quondam  friends,  and  were  filled  on  the  Sabbath  by  mem- 
bers of  it.  August  10,  1840,  in  the  fortieth  number  of  the 
volume,  the  official  paper  appeared  in  new  dress  of  type,  and 
otherwise  improved,  under  the  editorship  of  E.  Yeates  Reese, 
who  imbued  it  with  a  high  literary  and  religious  flavor.  Novem- 
ber 28,  1840,  Hev.  John  McCormick,  an  original  Reformer,  died. 
Also  Rev.  William  Kern,  September  9,  1840,  a  member  of  the 
Ohio  Conference  and  an  early  Reformer.  Thirteen  camp-meet- 
ings were  held  in  Maryland  through  the  summer  of  1840,  and  the 
renewed  prosperity  of  the  Church  in  all  sections  became  appar- 
ent. It  was  proposed  in  the  East  to  hold  a  Convention  of  all 
the  Conferences  in  November,  1840,  to  secure  a  census  of  prog- 
ress.    In  Maryland,  T.  H.  Stockton,^  who  was  largely  the 

1  This  paper,  now  for  some  years  under  the  title  of  the  Pittsburgh  Christian 
Advocate,  as  late  as  1897,  under  the  editorship  of  Rev.  Dr.  Smith,  perpetuates 
this  ingrained  prejudice  and  disregard  of  the  true  facts  of  history  as  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  lay-representation  embodied  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  by  offi- 
cially declaring  that  lay-delegation  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  has  been 
belated  and  handicapped  by  the  continued  existence  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church!  The  suggestion  is  so  unique  as  to  merit  this  notice  of  it;  it  was  never 
before  proposed,  and  likely  never  will  be  again  by  any  sane  mind. 

2  In  the  spring  of  1839  T.  H.  Stockton  established  in  Philadelphia  a  mission  Meth- 
odist Protestant  Church  on  Filbert  Street,  above  Tenth,  out  of  original  materials 


CONVENTION  OF  1S40  AND  T.  II.  STOCKTON  317 


promoter,  with  Augustus  Webster  and  John  Clark,  were  the 
committee  to  arrange  preliminaries. 

In  October,  1839,  the  Onondaga  Conference  was  organized  out 
of  the  Genesee.  There  appear  to  be  no  official  records  of  it  in 
either  the  Baltimore  official  or  the  Western  paper.  They  were 
probably  sent  by  local  preference  to  the  I^ew  York  Luminary, 
which  had  been  established  by  the  New  York  Conference  some 
six  months  earlier;  but  as  there  is  no  extant  file  of  this  paper, 
the  writer  has  had  great  difficulty  in  securing  the  facts.  They 
are  given,  however,  in  a  foot-note.^  In  the  autumn  of  1839,  the 
Ohio  Conference  set  of£  as  a  new  district  the  state  of  Indiana, 

drawn  to  him  by  his  matchless  eloquence.  In  June  of  the  same  year  he  began  the 
issue  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Letter-Press,  a  small  quarto  of  eight  pages,  to  aid 
in  his  mission  work  and  give  scope  to  that  irrepressible  disposition  he  exhibited  to 
edit  and  publish  something  —  a  medium  for  his  teeming  intellections  apart  from  pul- 
pit deliverance  for  which  nature  and  grace  solely  intended  him.  The  Letter-Press 
was  continued  one  year  with  an  average  circulation  of  perhaps  one  thousand,  his 
personal  magnetism,  and  the  eloquence  of  his  pen  as  well,  winning  subscribers  to 
it.  It  was  a  "  free  "  press,  but  strange  to  say  that  on  the  slavery  question  it  was 
conservative.  It  is  full  of  the  best  reading  and  much  church  intelligence.  At  the 
end  of  the  year  his  versatile  and  vagarious  mind  proposed  to  substitute  it  with  the 
Christian  Review.  Later,  1843-44-45,  he  issued  the  Christian  World,  and  later 
still  in  Cincinnati,  the  Bible  Alliance,  and  still  later  the  Bible  Times.  These  and 
other  ventures  involved  him  in  debt,  which  generous  friends  covered  or  forgave. 
He  had  no  practical  business  sense,  but  was  inventive,  and  fertile,  and  brilliant. 
He  was  an  example  of  misdirected  energy  and  waste  of  splendid  resources  as  an 
orator.  The  churches  in  Philadelphia  were  attached  to  the  Maryland  Conference 
after  Stockton  began  his  labors  in  the  city,  and  then  the  General  Conference  of 
1842  set  off  a  Philadelphia  district  with  special  *'  mission  "  privileges  and  exemp- 
tions. Stockton  built  the  First  Church  at  Eleventh  and  Wood  streets,  and  crowds 
filled  it.  Its  subsequent  history  and  that  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  is  one  of 
the  saddest  of  the  Church  annals,  and  was  the  father  of  the  Baltimore  "  mission  " 
controversy  which  damaged  the  Church  irreparably  by  a  series  of  blunders  for 
which  both  parties  were  about  equally  responsible.  A  portly  volume  would  not 
suffice  to  tell  the  story  of  Stockton's  life  in  Maryland,  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati, 
Baltimore,  and  finally  in  Philadelphia,  after  a  second  chaplaincy  in  Washington 
to  Congress,  closing  with  a  triumphant  death  and  a  glorious  immortality.  This 
note  is  here  appended  for  the  reason  that  it  will  be  impracticable  to  follow  the 
career  of  this  remarkable  genius  in  the  running  text  of  this  History.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  he  retained  by  courtesy  his  membership  in  the  Pittsburgh  Confer- 
ence to  the  last,  though  alienated  in  large  part  from  his  quondam  friends  by 
causes  which  neither  could  fully  control.  It  secured  the  fulfilment  of  an  eloquent 
declaration  of  church  fidelity  he  uttered  in  the  heyday  of  his  Methodist  Protes- 
tant devotion.  Referring  to  the  possibility  of  disruption  and  failure  he  said,  "  I 
will  fall  beneath  the  ruins  of  our  shattered  towers;  there  shall  my  grave  be!  " 
See  official  paper,  June  10,  1843. 

1  Rev.  L.  R.  Huffsteter  has  kindly  furnished  the  following  data.  At  a  meeting 
of  the  itinerant  ministers  of  the  eastern  section  of  the  Genesee  district,  convened 
at  Clockville,  N.  Y.,  on  the  9th  of  October,  1839,  pursuant  to  notice,  organized  a 
new  conference  out  of  the  eastern  section  of  the  Genesee  district.  The  ministers 
present  were:  N.  N.  Bert,  Lewis  Mervin,  Peter  Parslow,  John  Barber,  Allen 


318 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


and  the  first  session  of  the  Conference  was  held  at  John  Burton's 
meeting-house,  near  Mt.  Tabor,  in  October,  1840,  and  it  gave  a 
new  impulse  to  the  cause  in  that  State,  which  has  ever  since 
continued.  Kobert  H.  G.  Hanna  was  the  first  President,  and 
associated  with  him  as  pioneer  laborers,  Bassett  names  Joseph 
Simpson,  Samuel  Morrison,  William  W.  Paul,  Thomas  and 
Joseph  Shipp,  John  Alter,  Harvey  Collings,  Thomas  Hicklin, 
David  H.  Stephens,  George  Wheatly,  and  Charles  H.  Williams. 
It  merits  notice  that  the  Book  Committee  of  the  ofiicial  paper, 
not  very  long  after  the  resolve  not  to  permit  personalities  or  to 
discuss  the  slavery  question,  found  themselves,  with  the  editor, 
confronted  with  a  controversy  over  the  word  "white,"  pro  and 
con ;  and  while  it  was  confined  to  brethren  East  and  South  they 
differed  so  widely  anent  it  that  sharpness  was  indulged,  and  Dr. 
W.  C.  Holcombe  of  Lynchburg,  Va.,  interposed  and  rebuked  the 
severity  of  the  polemics,  insisting  that  those  who  favored  ex- 
punging it  —  of  which  he  was  not  one  —  "  have  the  right  to  seek 
this  alteration,  provided  they  do  it  in  a  constitutional  manner, 
and  ought  not  to  be  branded  with  unchristian  remarks  for  so 
doing."  The  Western  Recorder  soon  became  the  vehicle  of  ex- 
treme arguments  and  Conference  resolves  on  slavery,  and  drew 
out  protests  from  milder  brethren;  and  so  on  either  side  strife 
and  alienation  kindled,  and  all  the  more  bitterness  because  they 
put  so  much  conscience  into  it. 

Now  came  a  calamity  to  the  first  educational  project  of  the  new 
Church.  Dearborn  College,  near  Lawrenceburgh,  Ind.,  dedicated 
only  about  a  year,  was  totally  destroyed  by  fire,  thus  blighting 
the  hopes  of  Snethen,  and  involving  a  heavy  loss.  Bassett,  the 
efficient  Agent,  makes  a  full  report  of  the  disaster,  June,  1839. 
It  was  destroyed  the  previous  February.  August  3,  1839,  William 
L.  Pichardson  was  appointed  Agent  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Com- 
mittee, and  he  served  efficiently  for  a  number  of  years.  J.  H. 
Honour's  "  Questions  and  Answers "  appeared  at  Charleston, 
S.  C,  in  1837,  and  in  pamphlet  form,  in  November,  1839.  As 

Murry,  John  Baum,  Ira  H.  Hogan,  Joshua  Beebe,  Noah  Durrin,  Lewis  Hubbard, 
O.  E.  Bryant,  Peter  Tipple,  Michael  Birge.  The  following  laymen  were  present: 
John  A.  Seeber,  S.  P.  Robbins,  Simeon  Bort,  Benjamin  Snow,  J.  Whiting,  A.  P. 
Grover,  J.  Smith,  Thomas  Lawrence,  Oliver  Swift,  Samuel  Barnes.  There  were 
also  a  number  of  local  preachers.  The  Conference  received  into  the  itinerancy 
William  Owens,  James  Richards,  Stephen  D.  Rowland.  It  had  representatives  in 
the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  1842,  O.  B.  Bryan,  minister,  L.  B.  Morris,  lay- 
man, though  the  minutes  of  this  Conference  do  not  show  the  usual  official  action 
in  recognition  of  new  conferences.  It  has  ever  since  maintained  an  effective 
organization. 


A  GROUP  OF  CURRENT  ITEMS 


319 


already  noticed,  W.  B.  Evans  in  the  West  arranged  "  Questions 
and  Answers,"  and  the  two  compilations  were  united  and  exten- 
sively circulated.  A  Maryland  Conference  Course  of  Study  was 
arranged  by  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  T.  H.  Stockton,  and  A.  A. 
Lipscomb,  April  25,  1840,  and  afterward  much  used  in  other 
Conferences.  The  Maryland  Conference  Convention  met  on  Tues- 
day, November  4,  1840,  at  St.  John's  church,  Baltimore,  with 
Kev.  Frederick  Stier,  Chairman,  and  A.  A.  Lipscomb,  Secretary; 
but  it  was  a  disappointment,  both  as  to  the  numbers  in  attendance 
and  the  information  elicited.  It  adjourned  on  the  6th  of  No- 
vember. Rev.  W.  W.  Wallace  became  editor  of  the  New  York 
Luminary,  in  November,  1840,  and  for  a  period  it  was  well  con- 
ducted and  promised  to  be  helpful.  It  was  a  large,  four-page 
folio  sheet,  well  printed.  Rev.  Moses  M.  Henkle,  who  had  done 
yeoman  service  for  Reform  in  the  West,  became  involved  with  his 
Ohio  Conference,  and  appealed  his  case  to  the  General  Conference 
of  1838,  which  sustained  the  local  Conference.  The  merits  of  the 
contention  need  not  be  considered.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  Henkle 
became  so  soured  and  ill  at  ease  that,  in  November,  1840,  he 
withdrew  and  connected  himself  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  receiving,  as  a  reward  for  change  of  church  relations,  an 
associate  position  on  the  Nashville  Advocate.  He  was  a  man  of 
pronounced  abilities,  and  in  his  "  Life  of  Bascom  "  deals  fairly 
with  his  old  friends  of  Reform,  though,  as  might  be  expected,  he 
finds  some  things  to  qualify  as  reasons  for  Bascom's  continuance 
in  the  old  Church,  which,  in  turn,  need  some  qualifying.  The 
Maryland  Conference  Convention,  aforementioned,  indorsed  Dr. 
Francis  Waters's  Windsor  Theological  and  Literary  Institute, 
located  at  Franklin,  about  four  miles  from  Baltimore.  Rev.  S. 
J.  Harris  of  North  Carolina  departed  this  life  October  16,  1840. 
He  was  a  devoted  original  Reformer  and  an  indefatigable  worker. 
Also  Rev.  Joseph  R.  Horn,  M.D.,  a  delegate  to  the  Convention 
of  1828,  passed  away.  Obituary,  November  28,  1840.  Rev. 
Robert  P.  Ward,  March  6,  1839,  an  early  Reformer,  deceased. 
The  First  Baltimore  Education  Society  was  formed  December  19, 
1840,  Dr.  S.  K.  Jennings,  President,  and  Charles  W.  Ridgely, 
Secretary.  Rev.  Sylvester  Hutchinson,  deceased  December  26, 
1840,  an  original  Reformer  in  the  North,  and  an  ex-itinerant 
under  Asbury,  who  arbitrarily  excluded  him  from  the  connection, 
as  he  did  Dr.  George  Roberts  of  Baltimore,^  but,  finding  cause  to 

1  At  the  Baltimore  Conference  of  1806,  Bishop  Asbury  said  to  Dr.  George  Rob- 
erts, an  itinerant  of  some  years'  standing,  and  father  of  Dr.  George  M.  C.  Roberts : 


320 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


review  his  judgment,  made  overtures  to  Hutchinson  to  return ; 
but  the  proposal  was  declined. 

At  the  General  Conference  of  1836  of  the  old  Church,  Rev. 
Orange  Scott  made  an  exhaustive  and  able  speech  against  slavery, 
defining  the  uncompromising  position  of  himself  and  allies;  but 
the  Conference  dealt  with  it  cautiously,  and,  in  consequence,  a 
Convention  of  antislavery  members,  principally  in  New  York 
State,  met  at  Utica,  N.  Y.,  January,  1841,  and  organized  the 
"  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church,"  and,  later,  coalesced  with  the 
Reformed  Methodists.^  Rev.  jST.  Wardner,  in  a  synoptical  sketch 
in  the  J^ew  York  Independent  of  March,  1891,  of  the  Orange  Scott- 
Matlack  "Wesleyans,"  dates  their  organization  May  31,  1843. 
Some  of  the  leaders  had  been  expelled  the  old  Church  for  extreme 
utterances  and  insubordination.  The  fundamentals  of  the  new 
Church  were  opposition  to  slavery  and  secret  societies.  Govern- 
mentally  it  is  lay-representative,  with  most  of  the  features  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  but  adopted,  of  course,  without 
reference  or  acknowledgment,  as  "Radicalism"  was  still  a  bug- 
bear, an  ecclesiastical  ogre,  at  sight  or  sound  of  which  Metho- 
dists of  the  old  school  were  affrighted.  Further  notice  of  this 
Church  will  be  necessary  later  in  this  History.  Death  of  Rev. 
Samuel  Henderson,  President  of  the  New  York  and  New  Jersey 
Conference  at  Williamsburg,  N.  Y.,  March  21,  1841.  Also  of 
Rev.  John  Haughton,  an  original  Reformer  of  the  West,  March 
21,  1841.  He  was  a  leader  in  the  Cincinnati,  0.,  Reform  move- 
ment, and  author  of  the  "Life  of  Rev.  Truman  Bishop,"  and  one 
of  the  most  faithful  of  that  heroic  band.  He  suffered  and  sacri- 
ficed much  for  the  cause  of  Mutual  Rights,  and  should  be  thus 
embalmed. 

Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  after  his  election  to  the  editorship  of  the  New 
York  Advocate,  understood  full  well  the  work  he  was  expected 

"  George,  I  am  in  trouble."  "  What  about,  Bishop?  "  the  doctor  said.  "  About 
you,  George,"  said  the  Bishop.  "Why,  Bishop,  you  need  not  be  in  any  trouble 
about  me."  That  was  all  that  passed  between  them.  The  next  morning  in  an- 
nouncing the  Appointments  for  the  coming  year,  he  read,  "  George  Roberts  lo- 
cated." Dr.  Francis  AVaters  and  the  Minutes  are  authority  for  the  statement 
just  made,  and  it  was  illustrative  of  the  Bishop's  method.  In  1805  he  was  chief 
pastor  of  Baltimore  city  station  ;  in  1806  you  search  the  printed  INIinutes  in  vain 
for  any  sign  of  his  name ;  the  Bishop  simply  blotted  him  out.  No  man  to  this 
day  knows  of  his  reason,  and  for  such  a  procedure  there  was  no  redress.  Perhaps 
it  was  right.  At  any  rate  under  this  "  strong  government  "  it  was  law.  How  in 
this  day  marvel  is  excited  that  free-born  Americans,  not  to  say  Christians,  should 
not  only  meekly  submit  to,  but  uphold,  such  a  sy.°tem. 

1  See  Methodist  Protestant.  All  the  cyclopaedias  give  1843  for  the  organization 
of  the  Wesleyan  Church  proper. 


DR.  BOND  A  FREE  LANCE 


321 


to  do,  and  he  set  himself  to  the  task  with  unusual  zeal.  Like 
Jehu,  he  "drove  furiously"  in  his  "zeal,"  if  not  for  the  Lord,  for 
Episcopal  Methodism.  By  May,  1841,  he  was  rampant  against 
all  innovators.  The  Zion^s  Watchman  of  Boston,  local  Con- 
ference paper,  made  a  scathing  review  of  "Bond-ana,"  as  his 
lucubrations  were  called,  on  the  "Difficulties  of  Methodism." 
So  hot  did  he  grow  as  he  parried  and  thrust  at  all  enemies, 
fancied  and  real,  that  he  overlooked  the  sacredness  of  personal 
character,  and  so  severely  traduced  the  Reformers  that  a  special 
meeting  of  the  old  Baltimore  "  Union  Society  "  was  summoned, 
in  extraordinary  session,  July  6,  1841,  at  St.  John's  church.  A 
prospectus  was  issued  for  a  monthly  Mutual  Rights  and  Ecclesi- 
astical Reform  paper,  to  be  printed  simultaneously  in  Boston  and 
New  York,  by  W.  W.  Wallace  and  T.  F.  Norris,  July,  1841. 
It  was  not  consummated.  The  Olive  Branch  continued  on  its 
prosperous  course,  attaining  great  excellence  and  popularity  for 
its  literary  catering  and  incidentally  furthering  Methodist  Re- 
form, while  the  New  York  Luminary,  after  a  struggle  with 
pecuniary  embarrassments,  in  a  few  years  succumbed.  The  Ohio 
Conference  passed  resolutions  defining  the  status  of  colored 
members,  in  1840,  in  harmony  with  the  dominant  sentiment.  It 
was  their  constitutional  privilege,  and,  if  the  sections  had  been 
content  to  abide  by  this  compromise,  each  Conference  determin- 
ing for  itself  the  rights  of  colored  members,  the  solidarity  of  the 
new  Church  might  have  been  conserved ;  but  the  slavery  question 
was  rapidly  becoming,  not  a  moral  question  only,  but  a  great 
political  one,  and  the  issues  so  defined  that  manifest  destiny 
hastened.^  Both  the  Western  Recorder  and  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant, March,  1841,  published  in  full  Bascom's  "Summary  of 

1  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  of  all  the  Christian  denominations  in  the  United 
States  having  continental  extension,  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal stand  alone  as  undivided  by  the  slavery  issue  and  the  Civil  War.  It  will 
not  be  alleged  that  their  members  took  no  cognizance  of  moral  questions  as  in- 
volved in  it,  nor  that  the  ecclesiastics  of  either  were  not  as  warmly  partisan  as 
others  on  the  question.  How,  then,  was  division  prevented  so  that  after  the  war 
they  had  nothing  to  readjust,  but  resumed  conventional  and  other  relations  eccle- 
siastically considered  as  though  no  such  interruption  of  them  had  occurred  ?  The 
only  answer  is  that  they  acted  on  the  principle  here  named.  Dioceses  and  Con- 
ventions on  either  territorial  side  of  the  slavery  question  "  resolved,"  and  thus  put 
themselves  on  record  as  satisfying  their  own  conscience.  There  was  something 
undoubtedly  in  Churchism  at  stake  which  moderated  sectional  zeal,  nor  were 
they  under  the  pressure  of  necessity  as  other  denominations  which  entered  into 
the  political  bearings  of  the  subject.  It  is  probable  that  if  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church  had  not  divided  as  early  as  1844,  and  had  held  together  officially 
without  regard  to  local  Conference  action,  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 

VOL.  II  —  Y 


322 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Rights."  A  decade  of  years  had  passed  since  it  was  written,  and 
it  was  a  new  thing  to  many  now  in  the  Church. 

July  31,  1841,  the  official  paper  entered  upon  its  eighth  vol- 
ume, under  Reese  as  editor,  and  the  Book  Committee,  to  which 
Charles  W.  Ridgely  had  been  added.  Among  English  Wesley- 
ans  the  canonical  fever  became  recrudescent,  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Bunting  appeared  in  full  toggery  of  the  Church  of  England,  but, 
as  in  Asbury's  case,  the  hard  common  sense  of  the  people  and 
the  conservative  preachers  shamed  it  into  an  "  innocuous  desue- 
tude." During  the  summer  of  1841,  in  Maryland,  under  the 
Conference  Presidency  of  Rev.  Augustus  Webster,  there  were 
sixteen  camp-meetings,  and  the  tide  of  prosperity  turned  in  all 
the  churches.  Webster  reviewed  the  Constitution  and  Disci- 
pline of  the  new  Church,  and  eulogized  it  for  the  careful  balance 
of  all  its  parts.  In  New  England,  by  a  call  through  Zion's 
Watchman,  the  laymen  of  the  old  Church  were  invited  to  meet  in 
Convention  to  consider  the  matter  of  lay-representation,  about 
August,  1841,  and  for  a  time  the  excitement  ran  high  and  gave 
Dr.  Bond  full  play  for  his  dialectical  skill.  Nothing  practical 
came  of  it,  however,  except  as  an  educating  agency.  Orange 
Scott  took  part  in  it ;  and  there  was  a  great  ferment,  ending  in 
the  secession  of  a  large  number,  who  formed  the  Wesleyan  Metho- 
dist Church,  already  referred  to  in  these  pages.  Rev.  Mr.  Ridg- 
way,  of  the  New  Connexion  Methodists,  on  a  visit  to  this  country, 
preached  in  St.  John's  church,  Baltimore,  and  gave  an  account 
of  his  Church  and  their  desire  to  fraternize  with  a  kindred  body, 
September  18,  1841.  Rev.  William  Kesley  of  the  Maryland 
Conference  and  an  original  Reformer,  died  September  23,  1841. 
He  was  a  self-sacrificing  itinerant  and  devoted  his  all  to  the  new 
Church.  September  21,  1841,  the  first  Mississippi  Conference 
was  organized.^    The  Youths^  Mirror  and  Sabbath  School  Gazette 

might  have  been  successful  in  so  doing.  And  it  was  without  question  this  Metho- 
dist influence  in  the  North  and  West  that  like  a  submerging  wave  bore  down  the 
moderate  antislavery  men  and  made  the  separation  of  the  North  and  West  a 
necessity  of  preservation  with  Methodist  Protestants.  It  will  be  seen  that  while 
the  South  and  East  offered  compromise  after  compromise  on  the  issue,  and  the 
North  and  West  endeavored  to  entertain  them,  it  was  impossible  to  resist  the  ris- 
ing tide.  As  it  was,  the  evidence  is  that  not  until  whole  Conferences  withdrew  in 
the  Northwest  did  such  conservative  men  as  Brown,  Israel  Thrapp,  Burns,  and 
others,  yield  to  the  inevitable,  as  stated  by  William  Collier  at  the  Lynchburg,  Va., 
General  Conference  of  1858  so  forcibly. 

1  It  assembled  at  Seneasha  camp-ground  in  Attala  County.  Elisha  Lott  was 
elected  President,  and  Henry  M.  A.  Cassiday  Secretary.  The  ministers  recognized 
were:  A.  B.  Lucas,  A.  W.  Long,  J.  Thompson,  H.  Baley,  P.  Napier,  D.  K.  Young, 


NEW  CHURCH  LEADERS  AND  WORK  323 


was  started  in  New  York,  January  1,  1842,  by  W.  W.  Wallace, 
a  small  bi-monthly  paper,  which  had  a  brief  existence. 

James  R.  Williams  enlarged  his  articles  on  the  history  of 
Reform,  heretofore  noticed,  and  issued  it  in  April,  1843,  as  a 
"History  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,"  published  by  the 
Book  Committee,  large  12mo,  402  pp.,  sheep.  It  was  a  valuable 
compend  in  its  day,  but  long  since  out  of  print;  though  a  num- 
ber of  copies  are  in  the  writer's  possession.  Late  in  1840  Shinn 
issued  his  work  on  the  "Benevolence  and  Rectitude  of  the 
Supreme  Being,"  with  the  imprint  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Com- 
mittee. It  was  a  12mo,  403  pp.,  sheep;  and,  though  never  re- 
published, a  number  of  copies  are  preserved,  several  in  the 
writer's  possession.  It  was  intended,  in  some  sense,  as  a  sup- 
plement to  his  "  Plan  of  Salvation, "  already  noticed,  and  is  by 
far  the  most  masterful  of  his  extant  productions.  It  was  fiercely 
attacked  by  would-be  critics  of  the  old  Church  and  in  the  new, 
by  reason  of  what  was  alleged  as  its  tendency  to  Universalism. 
Shinn  met  and  quieted  these  animadversions.  His  imperial 
intellect  was  at  its  best,  and  the  Church  would  honor  itself  and 
subserve  the  cause  of  theology  by  its  republication.  In  the  offi- 
cial paper,  March  12,  1842,  he  gives  a  series  on  the  "  Axioms  of 
Protestant  Methodists,"  based  upon  the  Elementary  Principles. 
March  1,  1842,  a  remarkable  revival  of  religion  occurred  on 
Union  Circuit,  Pittsburgh  Conference,  under  the  pastorate  of 
James  Robison,  of  six  months'  duration  and  218  additions  to  the 
Church.  Robison  will  be  further  noticed  as  one  of  the  most 
laborious  and  successful  of  the  pastors  and  general  agents ;  of  ex- 
treme but  honest  convictions,  and  always  true  to  his  ecclesiastical 
relations.  In  the  spring  of  1842,  Bishop  Andrew  gave  a  decision 
officially,  which  reversed  an  action  of  the  Virginia  Conference. 
So  arbitrary  was  it  regarded  that  the  well-known  "Parson" 
Brownlow  of  Tennessee  scathingly  reviewed  it,  and  uttered  sen- 
timents fully  indorsing  the  principles  of  the  new  Church.  The 
Maryland  Conference  entered  upon  a  period  of  unusual  pros- 

D.  Carstarphen,  W.  McCormick,  J.  Long,  Samuel  Butler,  B.  Sweringen,  J.  Lee. 
The  laymen,  W.  T.  McDonald,  B.  Kitchen,  M.  Wade,  R.  H.  Griffin,  Peter  Loper, 
G.  D.  McCormick,  F.  McCormick,  Anderson  Parker.  James  Ford  and  T.  W.  Jones 
were  appointed  Conference  missionaries.  H.  M.  A.  Cassiday  missionary  to  Texas, 
then  a  province  of  Mexico,  and  in  fact  foreign  missionary  ground.  J.  G.  Sibley  and 
A.  G.  Lane  were  without  appointments.  The  president,  being  a  man  of  some  prop- 
erty, threw  himself  with  all  he  possessed  into  the  work,  and,  mounting  his  horse, 
traversed  not  only  the  extensive  district  just  laid  oif,  but  made  incursions  into  dis- 
tant parts,  planting  Reform  churches  and  pioneering  the  cause. 


324  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


perity.  At  the  Conference  of  April,  1842,  under  Augustus 
Webster's  Presidency,  a  net  increase  of  fifteen  hundred  members 
was  reported,  equivalent  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  it  was 
made  the  occasion  of  a  special  address  to  the  Church  from  a  com- 
mittee of  Dr.  Waters,  Josiah  Varden,  and  J.  AV.  Richardson. 
The  devoted  and  accomplished  Webster  rode  through  the  Confer- 
ence district  preaching  with  power  and  visiting  the  camp  and 
protracted  meetings,  which  were  aflame  during  the  year.  April, 
1842,  Ancil  H.  Bassett  furnished  for  the  official  paper  an  account 
of  Church  growth  in  the  West,  indicating  the  prevalence  of  re- 
vivals everywhere  during  the  year  1841-42.  He  sums  up  for 
the  Ohio,  Pittsburgh,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  districts :  circuits  and 
stations,  96;  itinerant  ministers  and  preachers,  197;  unstationed 
ministers  and  preachers,  232;  members,  17,821,  showing  that 
within  ten  years  the  field  had  increased  threefold,  the  number 
of  preachers  fourfold,  and  between  three  and  fourfold  in  members. 
The  work  had  spread  into  Michigan  and  Iowa.  Rev.  James  Da}^, 
an  early  Reformer,  passed  away  February  19,  1842. 

During  Augustus  Webster's  Presidency,  in  1842,  of  the  Mary- 
land Conference,  he  was  attacked  by  Rev.  William  Spray  of 
Easton,  Md.,  who  refused  to  give  out  the  notice  sent  him  of 
Webster's  preaching  in  the  Reform  church.  This  led  the  latter 
to  publish  a  catechism  of  the  discourtesies  he  had  experienced 
from  the  old  side  brethren  in  an  article  in  the  official  paper  of 
March  5,  1842.  One  instance  must  suffice  out  of  the  bead-roll. 
While  Webster  was  pastor  of  Reisterstown  circuit,  in  1833,  he 
had  a  regular  appointment  at  an  old  church  occupied  jointly  by 
Reformers  and  the  old  side;  but  some  of  their  members  at  this 
point  raised  objections  to  Webster  preaching  there,  preferring  to 
be  without  preaching  oftener  than  once  a  month,  rather  than 
have  his  occupancy  of  the  pulpit;  but  he  persevered  in  his  ap- 
pointment, as  the  people  generally  indorsed  him,  and  gave  a  large 
congregation  when  he  preached.  This  so  excited  the  opposition 
that,  in  their  misguided  zeal,  a  charge  was  trumped  up  against 
him,  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  Web- 
ster was  arrested  under  the  warrant,  while  walking  through  the 
village  of  Reisterstown,  and  carried  before  a  magistrate.  At 
the  hearing,  the  community  exhibited  such  indignation  that  the 
parties  to  the  unchristian  affair  were  glad  to  abandon  the 
prosecution. 

The  third  General  Conference  assembled  at  St.  John's  church, 
Baltimore,  Tuesday,  the  third  day  of  May,  1842,  at  9  a.m.,  Asa 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1842 


825 


Shinn,  President  pro  tern.,  and  John  J.  Reed,  Secretary.  The 
following  were  reported  as  members :  — 


Pittsburgh 


Ministers 

Asa  Shinn 
Charles  Avery  i 
John  Burns 
H.  Heberlinei 
George  Brown 
Z.  Ragan 
J.  Clarke,  Jr. 
J.  Herbert! 
C.  Springer 
George  Hughes 


A.  H.  Bassett 
Robert  Dobbins  ^ 
David  Crallei 


Ohio 


Laymen 

Thomas  Freeman 
John  Souder 
J.  M.  Philips  1 
H.  Springer! 
Dr.  M.  Adams! 
P.  Lewis 
James  Clarke  ! 
Edward  Stevens  ^ 
J.  J.  Barnes 
W.  S.  Thorn 


D.  C.  Carson 
J.  Whetstone 
J.  Foster  1 


W.  H.  Collins 


Illinois 


O.  W.  Kellogg! 


Samuel  Butler 


Mississippi 


James  "Wade ! 


Thomas  K.  Witsel 
Enoch  Jacobs 


New  York 


John  J.  Reed 
J.  D.  Frambers  ! 


J.  G.  Whitfield 


Virginia 


H,  D.  Woodhouse 


Dr.  H.  P.  Bennett 
Thomas  Hicklin 


Indiana 


William  Smith 
John  Burton 


B.  H.  Ragsdalei 


Tennessee 


Dr.  J.  L.  Armstrong! 


North  Carolina 


A.  Albright 
John  F.  Speight! 


Thomas  F.  Norris!- 


Boston 
!  Absent. 


W.  C.  Whitaker 
R.  C.  Rankin 


J.  K.  Dunham 


326  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFOBM 


Maryland 


Ministers 

Dr.  Francis  Waters 
Augustus  Webster 
Dr.  John  S.  Reese 
Frederick  Stier 
James  R.  Williams 
W.  C.  Lipscomb 
W.  H.  Bordleyi 


Alexander  McCaine 


P.  S.  Graves 
C.  L.  Nashi 


N.  Crary,  Jr. 

John  Smith 
George  Smith  i 
A.  Pennell 
Charles  Evans  i 
O.  E.  Bryan 
None 


Laymen 

W.  S.  Stockton 
A.  S.  Naudain 
Peter  Light  i 
E.  Crutchley 
J.  B.  Thomas 
Alexander  Waugh 
William  Rusk 


South  Carolina 


Alabama 


Champlain 


Pennsylvania 


William  Kirkwood^ 


B.  S.  Bibb 
B.  Little  1 


E.  EngeP 


Vermont 


Genesee 


Georgia 


Onondaga 


Arkansas 


J.  Van  Camp  i 


Lewis  L.  Fish 


Thomas  Barkley 


John  Bass^ 


L.  B.  Morris 


None 


Twenty-nine  were  absent,  showing  eighty  elected  and  fifty- 
one  present.  It  will  not  be  forgotten  in  reflecting  upon  this 
percentage  of  absentees  that  travel  in  those  days  of  no  railroads 
meant  not  only  heavy  expense  but  serious  discomfort.  The  roster 
is  copied  from  the  official  manuscript  minutes  in  custody  of  Bal- 
timore Book  Concern,  and  are  consulted  by  the  writer  for  this 
and  all  future  General  Conferences  of  the  Church  as  thus  pre- 
served.   Of  the  Maryland  laymen  Alexander  Waugh  was  present, 

1  Absent. 


SLAVERY  QUESTION  OFFICIALLY  REVIVED  327 


brother  of  Beverly  Waugh,  now  Bishop,  but,  as  intimated  else- 
where, he  had  so  thoroughly  indoctrinated  Alexander  with  "  Radi- 
calism," that  despite  his  own  tergiversation  the  loyal  brother 
could  not  shake  it  off.  The  woods  in  Frederick  and  Baltimore 
counties  were  full  of  the  converts  the  Bishop  had  made,  and  they 
continued  for  the  most  part  faithful  to  his  instructions.  Twenty 
Annual  Conferences  were  recognized,  the  Onondaga  having  been 
set  off  by  the  Genesee,  with  the  consent  of  Champlain,  on  a  cer- 
tain condition,  which  the  General  Conference  finally  waived,  and 
its  representatives  were  admitted.  The  chairmen  of  committees 
were  as  follows :  Literary,  T.  F.  Norris ;  Journals,  John  Smith ; 
Executive,  George  Brown;  Means  of  Grace,  W.  S.  Stockton; 
Memorials,  Enoch  Jacobs;  Missionary,  John  S.  Reese;  Financial, 
P.  S.  Graves ;  Judiciary,  Cornelius  Springer.  At  the  election  for 
permanent  officers,  on  the  second  ballot  Asa  Shinn  was  named 
President,  and  on  the  first  John  J.  Reed  and  A.  H.  Bassett  Secre- 
taries. Nicholas  Snethen,  Samuel  K.  Jennings,  and  Benjamin 
Richardson,  being  present,  were  invited  to  participate  in  its  de- 
liberations. The  Virginia  Conference  memorialized  for  but  one 
order  of  ministers,  "elders  or  bishops."  Evans'  and  Honour's 
"Questions  and  Answers"  officially  indorsed  and  ordered  to  be 
kept  on  sale  at  the  Book  Room.  The  Michigan  Conference  was 
recognized  and  boundaries  appointed.  The  report  of  the  Book 
Committee  is  detailed  and  covers  the  changes  of  the  quadrennium, 
the  failure  of  the  original  committee,  and  the  new  incorporation 
with  its  present  condition,  more  favorable  than  previously.  The 
official  paper  had  had  an  average  of  about  two  thousand  sub- 
scribers, but  the  credit  plan  prevailing,  many  had  not  paid.  Eli 
Yeates  Reese  was  voted  a  compensation  of  $400  for  the  year  past, 
and  he  was  reelected  editor  by  a  complimentary  vote. 

The  slavery  question  revived  by  the  introduction  of  various 
Conference  resolutions  and  numerous  private  memorials.^  They 

1  The  entire  batch  of  these  Conference  resolutions  and  private  memorials  is  now 
before  the  writer.  No  one  can  doubt  the  serious  nature  of  the  question  as  they 
present  it.  A  number  of  them  are  printed  as  to  the  "  declaration,"  and  as  they 
came  from  various  sections  of  the  North  and  West  it  is  in  evidence  that  some  one 
was  zealous  in  the  printing  and  circulation  of  them  for  local  signatures  in  which 
both  brethren  and  sisters  unite.  Scanning  these  signatures,  you  are  impressed 
with  the  uncompromising  opposition  of  the  persons  —  free  from  the  sin  themselves, 
they  could  not  and  woufd  not  suffer  sin  upon  their  Southern  brethren.  They 
rebuke  it  in  no  measured  terms.  There  must  be  action,  immediate  action  for 
emancipation ;  the  consequences  are  not  considered  to  the  unfortunate  holders  of 
slaves  forbidden  to  free  them  by  the  civil  law.  And  yet  but  eight  or  nine  of  the 
twenty  Conferences  and  less  than  five  hundred  signers  to  the  thirteen  or  more 
memorials  made  this  demand. 


328  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


were  referred  to  a  special  committee,  which  brought  in  majority 
and  minority  reports.  Then  followed  much  discussion  occupying 
several  days,  with  the  final  result  that  both  reports  were  laid 
upon  the  table,  that  discreet  and  self-possessed  man,  Dr.  John  S. 
Reese,  conferring  with  the  conservatives  and  bringing  in  a  reso- 
lution, which  finally  passed  as  another  compromise  measure  by  a 
vote  of  twenty-three  to  twenty.  It  read:  ''Eesolved,  that  in  the 
judgment  of  this  General  Conference  the  holding  of  slaves  is  not 
under  all  circumstances  a  sin  against  God;  yet  in  our  opinion, 
under  some  circumstances  it  is  sinful,  and  in  such  cases  should 
be  discouraged  by  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  The  Gen- 
eral Conference  does  not  feel  authorized  by  the  Constitution  to 
legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery;  and  by  a  solemn  vote  we 
present  to  the  Church  our  judgment,  that  the  different  Annual 
Conferences,  respectively,  should  make  their  own  regulations  on 
this  subject,  so  far  as  authorized  by  the  Constitution."  Then 
followed  written  protests  by  groups  of  the  brethren  against  the 
action,  and  one  in  support.  Alexander  McCaine  defended  the 
institution  of  American  Domestic  Slavery,  drawing  his  arguments 
from  the  Scriptures ;  Shinn,  Stockton,  and  others  answered,  much 
severity  of  speech  being  indulged  at  times  on  both  sides,  and  the 
reading  of  the  manuscript  minutes  shows  into  what  a  sad  plight 
the  struggling  Church  was  brought  by  this  agitation.  Snethen's 
sermon  before  the  General  Conference,  and  his  speech  on  the 
slavery  resolution,  are  both  reported  by  Eli  Yeates  Reese  in  the 
ofl&cial  paper  for  May  and  June,  1842.  George  Brown  and  A.  H. 
Bassett,  who  were  both  present  during  the  entire  session,  give 
accounts  of  the  proceedings,  and  indicate  how  widely  the  point  of 
view  of  even  Western  brethren  differed.^  J.  J.  Reed  of  the  New 
York  Conference  withdrew,  with  the  Journal  and  papers  of  that 
body,  amid  the  excitement  of  debate  on  the  subject,  declining  to 
ask  the  usual  leave  of  absence,  and  A.  A.  Lipscomb  was  appointed 
acting  Secretary  for  the  closing  session.  The  statistics  of  the  quad- 
rennium,  as  furnished  by  Williams  in  his  "  History,"  are  the  most 
elaborate  ever  furnished,  itemized  by  Conferences  and  carefully  re- 
capitulated. The  totals  are :  stations,  49;  circuits,  259;  missions, 
52;  stationed  ministers  and  preachers,  634;  unstationed  ministers 
and  preachers,  525;  members,  including  ministers  and  preachers, 
55,341;  whole  number  of  churches,  421;  value  of  Church  prop- 
erty, $412,225.  The  Conference  adjourned.  May  16,  1842,  after 
thirteen  days'  deliberation,  to  meet  in  Cincinnati,  May,  1846. 

1  Brown's  " Itinerant  Life,"  pp.  286-288.    Bassett's  "History,"  pp.  159,  160. 


EXTREMISTS  CONTINUE  THE  DEBATE  329 


The  extremists  returned  to  their  homes  only  to  renew  the  con- 
tention. McCaine  published  his  defence  of  slavery  in  pamphlet, 
to  which  James  R.  Williams  replied,  showing  how  Southern  men 
differed  on  the  abstract  question.  J.  G.  Wilson  of  Philadelphia, 
an  able  debater,  took  part  by  addressing  "  Amicus  "  through  the 
official  paper  an  article  admitting  that  the  General  Conference, 
under  the  Constitution,  had  no  power  through  its  "judicatories" 
to  determine  what  is  sin  and  heresy,  to  which  Williams,  as 
"Amicus,"  replied.  Charles  Avery  and  Cornelius  Springer  en- 
tered the  lists  in  the  Western  Eecorder,  and  Brown  was  severely 
criticised  for  his  conservative  views,  giving  an  exhibition  of  blind 
partisanship  on  both  sides.  Meantime  as  the  result  not  a  few 
persons  in  the  North  and  West,  dissatisfied  with  the  outcome  of 
the  General  Conference  action,  withdrew  from  the  Church  and 
allied  themselves  with  the  Wesleyan  Methodists,  or  stood  aloof 
altogether.  The  strain  upon  the  youthful  organization  grew  more 
tense  as  the  months  rolled  on,  and  antislavery  as  a  political  force 
received  accretion  of  numbers  and  increased  momentum,  stimu- 
lated by  a  like  condition  of  things  in  the  old  Church,  now 
arranging  itself  in  sections  on  the  same  question. 

Eev.  Jonathan  Forrest  departed  for  his  heavenly  home  June, 
1842,  in  the  ninety -first  year  of  his  age.  He  was  an  ex-itinerant 
of  the  old  Church,  of  unblemished  character  and  fair  abilities, 
well  known  in  Maryland,  and  who  sided  with  Reform  from  the 
beginning  as  a  retired  minister,  and  did  what  he  could  in  his  old 
age  to  further  it.  Rev.  W.  W.  Wallace  resigned  as  editor  of  the 
New  York  Luminary  May  28,  1842,  owing  to  a  local  difference 
with  his  Conference  which  the  General  Conference  had  declined 
to  decide,  and  it  led  finallj^  to  his  withdrawal  from  the  Church 
after  some  years  of  faithful  service.  He  was  succeeded  by  Enoch 
Jacobs.  Meantime  everywhere  those  who  were  more  intent  upon 
soul-saving  than  controversy  gave  themselves  to  evangelistic  work, 
and  gracious  was  the  result  in  many  places.  East,  West,  and  South. 
In  Maryland  twenty-one  camp-meetings  were  held  in  the  summer 
of  1842,  with  Webster  as  President  the  second  year,  into  which 
he  was  pressed  against  his  inclination.  In  the  midsummer  a 
great  revival  occurred  at  Easton,  Md.,  under  the  stimulation 
of  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  and  others  of  the  regular  ministry, 
with  sixty  additions,  many  joining  elsewhere.  The  Cumberland 
Presbyterian  makes  favorable  notice  of  the  new  Church  and  the 
similarity  of  origin  and  polity. 

Dr.  Bond,  as  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate,  con- 


330 


mSTOEY  OF  METUOBIST  REFORM 


tinned  to  belabor  the  Eadicals  "  and  the  new  Reform  in  the 
North,  and  by  such  methods  that  the  editor  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant,  who  knew  him  personally  in  Baltimore  as  his  father's 
physician,  thus  characterized  him,— "a  cunning,  sophistical, 
shrewd,  managing  controvertist,"  a  depiction  even  his  sober 
friends  did  not  deny.  There  was  a  growing  disposition  in  some 
parts  of  the  South  to  fault  the  official  paper  because  of  its  con- 
servative position  as  to  the  slavery  question;  in  a  few  cases  Con- 
ferences passed  resolutions  calling  upon  the  editor  to  denounce 
"Abolitionism,"  threatening  to  establish  an  opposition  paper  if 
he  did  not.  This  led  the  ever  prudent  Snethen  to  address  to  such 
an  open  letter  through  the  paper,  December  24,  1842,  deprecating 
their  antagonism  in  this  form,  and  predicting  that  unless  extreme 
men  in  either  section  should  cease  their  unreasonable  demands 
division  would  ensue.  He  did  not  live  to  see  the  fulfilment 
of  it,  but  it  came  in  due  course  of  events.  McCaine  and  the 
editor  became  involved  in  this  discussion,  and  it  was  at  this  time, 
December  31,  1842,  that  the  Book  Committee  censured  him  for 
personal  references  to  McCaine.  Shinn  published  a  series  on 
Universalism  in  the  Western  paper,  in  part  a  vindication  of  his 
work  on  the  Supreme  Being,  about  the  same  time. 

In  July,  1842,  the  first  Michigan  Annual  Conference  was  held ; 
James  Gay,  President,  and  eighteen  ministers  and  preachers,  five 
of  whom  were  itinerants :  Jeremiah  T.  Pratt,  Elisha  Hall,  Laban 
Smith,  George  B.  Wooster,  and  Beniah  Bayn.  There  were  three 
circuits,  Adrian,  Franklin,  and  Jackson,  formerly  part  of  the 
Ohio  district,  and  about  250  members.  In  September,  1842,  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference,  at  its  session  at  Mt.  Vernon,  O.,  decided 
to  divide,  setting  off  the  portion  lying  within  Ohio  as  the  ]\Ius- 
kingum  Conference,  and  the  remaining  portion  retaining  the  name 
of  Pittsburgh.  Before  division  the  Conference  elected  two  Presi- 
dents, George  Brown  and  Israel  Thrapp,  leaving  them  to  decide 
their  allotment.  Thrapp  having  been  given  the  choice,  selected 
Muskingum,  which  retained  Brown  in  the  Pittsburgh.  They  soon 
grew  to  be  large  organizations.^    Rev.  J.  A.  Gere  of  the  Balti- 

1  After  the  division  Israel  Thrapp  made  oue  round  as  President  hefore  the 
Muskingum  met  for  organization.  The  first  session  as  reported  in  the  official 
paper  and  the  Western  Recorder  elected  Joel  Dalby,  Jr.,  President,  and  the  roster 
was  as  follows:  John  Burns,  Thomas  Cullen,  \Vm.  Turner,  W.  Maynard,  D. 
Kinney,  Wm.  Munhall,  John  Hamby,  N.  Burgess,  James  Heath,  Wm.  B.  Moody, 
A.  Tracy,  R.  Andrews,  Jer.  Jack,  T.  B.  Cushman,  A.  K.  Brown,  J.  W.  Case, 
Prentis  Kiudsley,  George  Clancy,  M.  Scott,  A.  S.  Robinson,  E.  S.  Hoagland, 
S.  H.  Heath,  Wm.  Marshall,  Wm.  Reeves,  S.  Lancaster,  Thomas  Porter,  A.  W. 


ST.  JOHN'S  ''MISSION''  CONTROVERSY  331 


more  Conference  made  a  public  attack  upon  the  character  of  Kev. 
Dr.  John  S.  Reese  at  Liberty,  Md.,  asserting  that  he  was  expelled 
in  1827  from  the  old  Church  for  immorality.  It  led  to  sharp 
answers  by  both  Reese  and  Webster  in  March,  1843.  In  this 
way,  as  has  often  been  exhibited,  the  old  sores  were  reopened 
and  the  controversy  revived,  but  always,  as  may  be  inferred,  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Reformers  in  public  estimation.  A  great 
revival  of  religion  occurred  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  March,  1843, 
under  the  pastorate  of  Rev.  Levi  R.  Reese,  now  one  of  the 
strongest  men  of  the  Church  and  rapidly  taking  commanding 
position.    There  were  120  conversions. 

At  the  close  of  Webster's  Presidency  of  the  Maryland  Confer- 
ence in  April,  1843,  there  was  reported  a  net  gain  of  twenty-three 
hundred  in  the  membership,  and  he  retired  to  assume  the  pastorate 
of  St.  John's,  Baltimore,  with  these  signal  tokens  of  a  wise  and 
laborious  administration.  At  this  Conference  Levi  R.  Reese  was 
elected  President,  and  the  St.  John's  church  asked  to  be  recog- 
nized as  a  Mission.  The  church  had  but  recently  divided  in  an 
amicable  manner  through  a  difference  upon  the  free-pew  question, 
etc.,  adherents  of  Wesley  Starr  and  others  insisting  upon  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  free-pew  system,  while  John  Clark  and  others 
desired  the  rent  system,  in  accordance  with  his  early  educational 
predilections.  He  was  wealthy  and  munificent.  The  free-seat 
brethren  withdrew  after  an  agreement  to  pay  them  $6000  as  their 
share  of  the  property  valuation,  and  with  this  as  a  basis  built 
the  West  Baltimore  station.  It  was  claimed  that  this,  and  a 
purpose  to  make  extensive  improvement  upon  the  old  church, 
necessitated  a  change  of  relation  to  the  Conference,  so  that  under 
a  pastor,  now  the  most  popular  preacher  in  the  Maryland  con- 
nection, they  might  compass  their  objects  and  make  a  greater  suc- 
cess of  the  work  than  they  could  otherwise.  Besides,  the  General 
Conference  of  1842,  through  the  persuasion  of  Stockton,  had 
granted  the  Philadelphia  churches  special  Mission  relations.  The 
Maryland  Conference  acceded  to  the  request  of  St.  John's,  and 

Avery,  H.  T.  Lawson,  W.  W.  Tipton,  Wm.  Remsburg,  Jno.  Huntsman,  M. 
Winn,  Wm.  Ross,  C.  Callihan,  N.  Linder,  J.  Roncliffe,  J.  Herbert,  C.  J.  Seares, 
J.  Nichols,  Joel  S.  Thrap,  T.  Fairfield,  Wm.  Duling,  Wm.  Boardman,  Charles 
Caddy,  J.  Thrapp,  Wm.  Baldwin,  Wm.  Hatfield,  L.  M.  Cochran,  G.  D.  Williams, 
Jno.  Baker,  E.  E.  Parish,  Jno.  Wilson,  A.  Barnes,  Jno.  Dorcas,  S.  Bloomer,  C. 
Woodruff.  Left  in  hands  of  President,  at  their  request,  J.  M.  Piper,  and  J.  D. 
Garmar.  In  hands  of  President,  Z.  Ragan,  A.  K.  Earl,  J.  Beatty,  John  Burnett, 
and  Thomas  Foster.  Without  appointment,  George  Waddle,  P.  Inskeep,  D.  B. 
Dorsey.  Supernumerary,  and  editor  of  Western  Recorder,  Cornelius  Springer. 
R.  Bamford  removed  by  certificate. 


332 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


Webster  was  sent  as  a  missionary;  and  Stockton  as  a  missionary 
to  Philadelphia,  where  he  inaugurated  the  First  church  with  pews 
and  a  relation  unaffected  by  the  "Eestrictive  Rule."  It  was  his 
fourth  year's  appointment.  It  was  the  beginning  of  an  inter- 
necine strife  that  set  back  the  new  Church  in  the  East  and  entailed 
a  loss  from  which  it  was  more  than  a  score  of  years  in  recovering. 
The  same  trouble  as  to  pews  and  the  "  Restrictive  Rule  "  was  brew- 
ing in  the  old  Church,  evidence  in  both  cases  of  the  ecclesiastical 
folly  of  legislating  for  future  generations  on  utilitarian  ques- 
tions. In  December,  1843,  the  St.  John's  church  was  reopened, 
the  President  of  the  Conference,  Levi  R.  Reese,  preaching  the 
sermon.  The  pastor  in  some  remarks  among  other  things  said, 
as  an  inducement  to  pew  renters,  that  by  the  Conference  action 
"the  frequent  rupture  of  the  tender  pastoral  relation  will  be 
avoided,"  as  reported  in  a  city  paper  under  the  editorship  of 
Beale  H.  Richardson,  one  of  the  leading  laymen  of  the  church. 
The  President  felt  it  his  duty  to  demand  retraction  from  John 
Clark,  who  refused,  whereupon  the  President  publicly  announced 
that  the  law  of  the  Church  would  remove  Webster  at  the  end  of 
the  second  year.  Crimination  and  recrimination  followed,  par- 
ties were  formed  throughout  the  Conference,  and  an  acrimonious 
and  unrelenting  contention  sprang  up  between  the  "  Restrictive  " 
and  the  anti-restrictive  rule  men.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  ulti- 
mated  in  the  separation  of  St.  John's  and  its  pastor  from  the 
Conference,  to  the  serious  final  detriment  of  both.  In  Phila- 
delphia it  ended  in  the  ruin  of  the  cause. ^ 

The  New  York  Luminary  was  discontinued  under  financial 
embarrassments,  April,  1843. 

1  For  a  fair  synoptical  statement  of  the  merits  of  the  controversy  see  "  History 
of  the  Maryland  Conference,"  by  J.  T.  Murray  and  T.  H.  Lewis,  pp.  30-39.  Balti- 
more, 1882.  12mo.  Cloth.  Also  in  writer's  possession  one  of  various  pamphlets 
published  during  this  so-called  "Mission  War,"  with  the  title,  "A  Statement  of 
the  Facts  alluded  to  in  an  Address  to  the  Ministers  and  Members  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  in  the  Maryland  District."    8vo.   21  pp. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


Dr.  Webster  editor  of  the  Baltimore  official  paper  —  New  Jersey  Conference  set 
off;  current  events  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  1844;  division; 
slavery  question  ;  Dr.  Bond ;  futile  meeting  of  protesting  laymen ;  moralizing 

—  Proposal  to  establish  Snethen  Seminary  at  Iowa  City  —  Bascom  again  — Bas- 
sett  editor  of  the  Western  Recorder  —  Whitfield-Smith  discussion  at  Shiloh, 
Va.  — Third  mental  lapse  of  Asa  Shinn —  Decease  of  Nicholas  Snethen  ;  sketch 
of  his  life  —  Slavery  conflict  in  the  new  Church  intensified  by  the  division  of  the 
M.  E.  Church  — Paris's  "  Church  History  "  —  Fourth  General  Conference  at  Cin- 
cinnati, May  5,  1846 ;  roster  of  members ;  slavery  discussion  renewed  ;  another 
compromise  by  Dr.  J.  S.  Reese  — The  Philadelphia  "  mission  "  question  next  in 
interest ;  result  of  the  slavery  debate ;  dissatisfaction  with  the  action  North 
and  West ;  secession  of  whole  Conferences  in  consequence ;  the  issue  ripening 

—  Statistics  showing  the  remarkable  growth  of  the  new  Church  in  face  of  the 
misrepresentations  of  old-side  vrriters  —  Bishop  M'Tyeire's  "  History,"  and  his 
estimate  of  the  Reform  Church  dissected  —  Foreign  mission  board  continued  — 
Adjournment. 

After  the  resignation  of  Eeese  as  editor,  the  Book  Committee 
elected  Augustus  Webster,  now  pastor  of  St.  John's  church,  and 
he  entered  upon  his  duties  with  the  number  of  July  29,  1843, 
the  paper  appearing  in  new  type  and  with  a  new  titular  head. 
During  the  summer  of  1843,  under  Levi  R.  Reese's  Presidency, 
no  less  than  twenty-three  camps  were  held  in  Maryland,  but  the 
"mission"  controversy,  like  a  baleful  fire,  scorched  or  consumed 
the  tender  spiritual  plant  of  the  Lord ;  the  personalities  and  ex- 
tremities of  partisanship  discouraged  evangelistic  work,  and  at 
the  close  of  the  year  an  actual  loss  of  numbers  was  reported, 
to  the  mortification  of  all  concerned,  and  various  reasons  were 
assigned  to  account  for  it  other  than  the  true  cause.  July  29  the 
paper  contained  a  full  account  of  the  setting  off  of  the  New  Jersey 
Conference,  March  29, 1843.-^  The  Olive  Branch  in  Boston  claimed 

1  The  following  was  the  action  of  the  New  York  and  New  Jersey  Conference 
anent  this  division:  "  Resolved  that  so  much  of  the  New  York  and  New  Jersey 
District  south  of  a  line  running  from  the  Raritan  river  to  New  Brunswick,  and 
thence  to  the  Delaware  river,  opposite  Easton,  be  set  off,  and  to  be  called  the 
New  Jersey  District,  and  that  the  Maryland  District  be  requested  to  agree  to  the 
above  arrangement,  and  that  the  Maryland  District  be  recommended  to  set  off 
the  city  of  Philadelphia  to  be  added  to  the  New  Jersey  District  .  .  .  the  words 

333 


334 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


nine  thousand  subscribers,  and  as  a  full  page  in  each  number  was 
devoted  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  it  did  much  to 
further  the  cause  in  the  Northeast.  The  Western  Recorder  was 
ably  edited,  and  much  of  its  space  was  occupied  with  the  slavery 
controversy.  The  attitude  of  the  official  paper  was  severely 
criticised  as  to  slavery  March  3,  1843,  and  in  1843-44  a  series 
appeared  in  a  bout  between  Rev.  Luther  Lee,  D.D.,  and  Alex- 
ander McCaine,  a  veritable  battle  of  giants  on  the  same  subject. 
It  gave  cheering  intelligence  weekly  of  the  advance  of  the  new 
Church  in  the  West  through  active  evangelistic  labors  of  devoted 
men,  and  by  accretions  from  the  East  through  the  migratory 
movement  now  going  on;  the  losses  from  this  cause  were  as  ten 
to  one,  inasmuch  as  they  located  where  no  organization  of  the 
new  Church  existed, —  a  serious  drawback  to  every  small  denomi- 
nation. There  is  no  computing  what  the  new  Church  through 
fifty  years  contributed  to  other  churches  as  a  feeder  for  this  and 
other  reasons. 

Kev.  J ames  Ward,  early  Reformer,  died  July  27,  1843.  Rev. 
Jeremiah  Browning,  from  Maryland,  an  original  1828  Reformer, 
also  passed  away  September  28,  1843.  Rev.  Samuel  L.  Rawleigh 
of  the  Maryland  Conference  deceased  November  21,  1843.  He  was 
an  ex-itinerant  of  the  old  Church  and  an  original  Reformer,  who 
continued  to  labor  actively  until  his  departure,  leaving  a  fragrant 
memory.  Rev.  Alexander  Albright  of  North  Carolina  deceased 
November,  1843.  His  name  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
founding  of  the  cause  in  that  State,  and  was  in  labors  more 
abundant.   Rev.  Wesley  Jones  Stanton  deceased  November,  1843. 

New  Jersey  to  be  stricken  from  the  name  of  Conference."  Copied  from  Rev.  Dr. 
J.  J.  Smith's  manuscript  sketch  of  New  York  Conference.  The  New  Jersey  Con- 
ference organized  immediately  thereafter,  assembling  at  Glassboro',  April  19, 
1843.  Herman  Bruce  was  the  first  President.  Ministers  —  Edward  Shock,  Allen 
Nickson,  Bartine  Twiford,  "William  Perkins,  Samuel  Budd,  and  .Jonathan  Timber- 
man.  The  laymen  —  Joseph  D.  Frambes,  John  C.  Sheets,  and  Uriah  Brooks. 
The  official  minutes  in  the  Church  organ  July  29,  1843,  give  as  the  list  of  unsta- 
tioned  ministers  and  preachers:  David  Kane,  James  Abbott,  .Jacob  Andrews, 
Benj.  S.  Thackary,  Robert  Hutchinson,  Samuel  Hill  (this  is  probably  typographi- 
cal for  Samuel  Budd  as  Bassett  gives  the  list),  .James  E.  Smith,  Samuel  Herbert. 
The  appointments  of  the  first  Conference  were :  Centreville  circuit,  J.  N.  Timber- 
man  ;  Glassboro'  and  Bridgeport  circuit,  to  be  supplied ;  Red  Bank  circuit.  Bar- 
tine  Twiford ;  New  Brunswick  circuit,  AYilliam  Perkins :  Dover  circuit,  to  be 
supplied;  Egg  Harbor  circuit,  Edward  Schock  (Shock).  The  proceedings  of  the 
early  sessions  of  this  small  but  stanch  body  do  not  appear  in  the  official  paper, 
and  the  manuscript  records  were  lost  for  a  number  of  years,  but  were  accidentally 
recovered,  and  are  in  the  possession  of  Rev.  Edward  D.  Stultz,  now  the  senior 
member  of  the  body. 


DIVISION  OF  M.  E.  CHURCH,  1844 


335 


Eev.  John  Smith,  first  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Conference, 
deceased  December,  1843.  He  was  an  ex-itinerant  of  the  old 
Church  of  a  number  of  years'  standing  and  irreproachable  char- 
acter, but  espoused  the  cause  of  Reform  from  the  beginning  and 
spent  his  closing  years  in  faithful  service  in  the  new  Church. 
Rev.  Daniel  Davies,  M.D.,  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  after  a 
struggle  of  several  years  with  pulmonary  disease,  passed  to  his 
reward,  January,  1844.  His  last  appointment  was  to  Charleston, 
S.  C,  after  the  close  of  his  editorship  of  the  official  paper.  He 
died  peacefully  among  his  friends  in  Maryland,  universally  loved 
and  lamented. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
met  in  New  York,  May,  1844.  It  was  the  memorable  Conference 
which  consumed  its  days  and  nights  on  the  Harding  case  of  appeal 
from  the  Baltimore  Conference  and  the  Bishop  Andrew  case,  both 
involving  the  merits  of  the  slavery  question,  the  agitation  upon 
which  now  culminated,  and  these  cases  were  made  a  test  and  the 
occasion  for  the  separation  of  the  Church.  Its  place  in  this  His- 
tory is  due  principally  to  the  fact  that  not  a  layman  was  present 
as  officially  representing  the  Church.  The  ministry,  as  arrogat- 
ing to  themselves  all  legislative  powers,  after  fruitless  efforts  to 
compromise  by  the  conservative  men  of  either  section,  agreed 
upon  conditions  of  separation,  which,  however  understood,  by 
mental  reservation  or  otherwise,  in  the  North  as  only  tentative 
and  in  the  nature  of  a  mere  resolution,  were  understood  in  the 
South  as  honestly  intended  to  provide  for  peaceful  separation. 
If  it  cannot  be  affirmed  with  certitude  that  the  separation  would 
not  have  occurred  had  the  Church  been  present  in  its  laical  char- 
acter, it  can  be  affirmed  that  at  least  no  such  chicane  and  double- 
dealing  would  have  disgraced  the  proceedings  as  afterward  invoked 
the  civil  courts  for  the  adjudication  of  the  property  question,  with 
but  one  good  result :  an  exposition  by  the  supreme  legal  authority 
of  the  hierarchical  character  of  the  exclusive  government  of  the 
Church,  with  not  only  an  absolute  control,  but  an  absolute  owner- 
ship, vested  in  the  ministry  alone,  thereby  sustaining  every  point 
made  by  the  Reformers  against  the  system. 

To  the  border  Methodists  the  division  was  very  distasteful,  as 
it  left  them  between  the  upper  and  lower  millstones.  A  large 
meeting  of  laymen  was  held  at  Wesley  chapel,  Washington,  D.  C, 
in  July,  1844,  at  which  remarkable  resolutions  were  passed, 
claiming  the  "  right "  to  frustrate,  if  possible,  the  action  of  the 
General  Conference  in  dividing  the  Church.    They  learned,  how- 


336 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BE  FORM 


ever,  that  they  had  no  "  rights  "  the  ministers  of  their  Church 
were  bound  to  respect.  The  lesson  has  been  repeated  many  times 
since  then,  and  for  nearly  thirty  more  years  they  were  kept  in 
tutelage  before  a  grudging  concession  of  an  emasculated  delega- 
tion was  allowed  them  by  the  General  Conference  of  1872.  The 
patient  submission  and  generous  forbearance  and  lavish  contribu- 
tions of  the  laity  of  that  Church,  while  thus  divested  of  all  rights 
and  all  privileges  such  as  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  they 
have  exercised  and  enjoyed  under  the  civil  institutions  of  the 
country,  are  without  a  parallel  in  history.  At  the  same  time  the 
almost  unintermitting  agitation  kept  up  by  them  as  episodes  in 
the  current  annals  of  every  section  of  the  Church  is  in  refutation 
of  the  gratuitous  slander  that  they  have  been  so  governed  by  their 
own  consent  and  free  will. 

Webster,  as  editor  of  the  official  organ,  exhibited  his  mental 
mastery  by  discussing  the  issues,  and  repelling  the  extreme 
declarations  of  writers  in  the  Western  Recorder  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  fathers  in  certain  constitutional  enactments,  as  the  word 
"white,"  and  the  full  power  of  Annual  Conferences  over  the  mat- 
ter of  colored  members.  The  first  session  of  the  North  Illinois  Con- 
ference, having  been  set  off  from  the  Illinois,  met  at  Princeton, 
1843,  and  P.  J.  Strong  was  elected  President.  It  included  in  its 
territory  Iowa,  where  a  few  societies  had  been  formed.  Nicholas 
Snethen  was  in  attendance  at  this  Conference,  and  it  was  pro- 
posed to  open  a  literary  institution  at  Iowa  City,  to  be  called 
Snethen  Seminary.  It  was  indorsed  by  the  two  Illinois  Confer- 
ences, and  Snethen,  in  his  old  age  but  full  of  zeal  for  the  cause, 
accepted  the  Presidency  of  the  proposed  school  and  prepared  a 
number  of  lectures;  but  within  a  year  his  earthly  labors  were 
ended,  and  the  project  came  to  nothing.  Meanwhile  W.  B. 
Snyder,  an  original  Reformer  of  Cincinnati,  had  removed  to  Iowa 
City.  He  was  one  of  the  Seminary  founders  and  commenced  the 
publication  of  a  religious  paper,  the  Iowa  Colporteur,  but  after 
six  numbers  it  was  suspended.  The  same  year  T.  H.  Stockton 
issued  a  volume  of  his  poems,  "  Floating  Flowers  from  a  Hidden 
Brook,"  and  his  father,  W.  S.,  issued  an  edition  of  Whitehead's 
"Life  of  Wesley,"  with  plates,  heretofore  noticed.  Alexander 
McCaine  was  now  living  at  Lott's,  Edgefield  district,  S.  C,  with 
his  children.  His  eldest  son,  a  young  physician,  embraced  reli- 
gion, and  declined  into  a  pulmonary  consumption.  His  father 
advised  him  to  seek  membership  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
church  of  the  place,  as  there  was  no  Methodist  Protestant  church 


BASCOM'S  LAST  ''RADICAL''  DELIVERANCE  337 


either  there  or  within  any  reasonable  distance.  The  son  did  so, 
and,  when  it  became  known,  some  of  McCaine's  friends,  with  more 
bigotry  than  piety,  criticised  the  act  as  encouraged  by  McCaine. 
Whereupon  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Boston  Olive  Branch  of 
some  length,  which  was  republished  in  the  official  organ,  the  gist 
of  which  was  that  his  difference  was  not  with  Methodism  as  such, 
but  with  episcopacy,  and  defended  his  course  in  the  matter.  It 
is  one  of  the  brightest  spots  in  the  career  of  this  stalwart  ecclesi- 
astical leader.  Would  that  the  writer  could  produce  parallels  to 
it  in  the  career  of  his  renowned  opponents.  Dr.  John  Emory  and 
Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  but  they  are  not  at  command. 

It  is  fitting,  however,  to  place  in  juxtaposition  with  it  a 
citation  from  H.  B.  Bascom's  "Review  of  the  Manifesto  of  the 
Majority,"  p.  102,  which  he  gave  to  the  press  some  months  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  General  Conference  of  1844,  already 
noticed.  Incisively  he  says  —  and  all  of  that  day,  his  contem- 
poraries in  both  the  old  and  the  new  Church,  who  could  read 
between  the  lines  felt  how  incisive  it  was :  "  It  has  always,  more- 
over, been  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  right  or  wrong,  that  the  sole 
right  to  govern  the  Church  in  all  its  diversified  interests  belongs 
to  the  travelling  ministry  to  the  exclusion  of  the  local  ministry 
and  laity,  and  that  the  travelling  ministry  constitute  the  govern- 
ment. ...  I  speak  of  things  as  they  are  and  not  as  they  ought 
to  be,  if  any  think  them  wrong."  It  was  treason  of  the  Patrick 
Henry  order,  even  if  he  covered  his  own  personality  in  more 
guarded  speech;  and  his  quondam  friends  were  not  slow  to  give 
him  the  benefit  of  the  heroic  utterance  as  thus  understood.  (See 
"Luther,"  W.  W.  Hill,  in  the  official  organ  for  1844-45.)  That 
five  years  later  Bascom  accepted  the  bishopric  is  a  fact  his  new 
friends  of  the  Church  South  can  wrestle  with;  the  writer  claims 
only  as  a  final  word  for  Bascom  that  he  can  never  be  classed  with 
ex-reformers  of  the  Emory-Bond- Waugh  specimens,  and  needs 
no  such  weak  apology  as  Bishop  M'Tyeire  gives  for  him  in  his 
"History"  of  these  times:  "Even  Bascom  uttered  some  senti- 
ments, in  the  heyday  of  his  blood,  which  were  not  in  harmony 
with  his  maturer  life,"  etc.  Not  a  syllable  can  be  produced  that 
he  ever  changed  his  opinions,  and  his  biographer  gives  the  true 
cue  to  his  ultimate  conduct:  "In  the  meantime  [1846-47]  his 
pecuniary  affairs  were  becoming  so  desperate  that  immediate 
temporary  ruin  appeared  inevitable.  The  cancer  that  consumed 
his  vitals  was  carefully  concealed  from  even  his  friends;  ...  an 
observant  friend  .  .  .  sought  and  found  the  cause  of  his  deep 

VOL.  II  —  Z 


338 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


mental  disquiet,  and  through  his  agency  a  nominal  loan  from  a 
number  of  Southern  gentlemen,  in  sums  of  ^500  and  less,  was 
procured,  the  whole  amounting  to  some  ^15,000."^  How  he 
would  have  administered  the  episcopal  office  no  one  knows,  as 
he  deceased  a  few  months  after  his  election.  If  any  still  insist 
that  his  course  was  inconsistent,  and  will  not  condone  the  fault, 
at  least  it  has  been  shown  that  "it  lies  gently  on  him." 

John  W.  Hamilton  is  announced  as  editor  ^ro  tern,  of  the  Western 
Recorder,  March  13,  1845.  He  continued  until  November  13, 
when  A.  H.  Bassett  became  editor,  with  Springer  as  associate, 
Vol.  7,  No.  1,  September  11,  1845.  The  new  editor  was  pains- 
taking, and  his  more  extreme  views  better  satisfied  the  patrons, 
and  the  Recorder  was  pushed  with  energy.  In  connection  with 
it  he  issued  yearly  the  Methodist  Protestant  Register  and  Almanac, 
a  kind  of  year-book.^  The  Christian  Sun,  a  quarto  semi-monthly 
publication,  was  issued  in  New  York  City,  with  Kev.  J.  W.  Greene 
as  editor  and  publisher,  at  ^1  a  year,  and  intended  to  take  the 
place  of  the  extinguished  Neio  York  Luminary,  but  its  existence 
was  very  brief.  Eev.  J.  G.  Wilson  of  the  Maryland  Conference 
issued,  1844,  the  Young  Preachers^  Homiletic  Magazine,  but  after 
a  short  career  it  was  discontinued  with  loss,  though  ably  con- 
ducted. In  the  autumn  of  1844  a  great  public  camp-meeting  dis- 
cussion took  place  between  Eev.  Dr.  W.  A.  Smith  of  the  old 
Church  in  Virginia  and  Eev.  J.  G.  Whitfield,  also  of  Virginia,  and 
both  leading  men  of  their  Conferences.  It  became  known  far  and 
wide  as  the  Shiloh  discussion,  and  was  continued  for  some  days, 
and  afterward  through  the  Richmond  Advocate  and  the  official 
organ.  It  put  Whitfield  among  the  foremost  debaters  of  his 
Church,  and  gave  its  Virginia  work  an  impulse  forward  which 
continued  until  the  Civil  War.  Dr.  E.  B.  Thomson,  F.  L.  Cosby, 
and  a  number  of  strong  men,  backed  by  liberal  and  zealous  lay- 
men, gave  prestige  to  the  rising  cause.  In  North  Carolina,  as  the 
veterans  superannuated,  their  places  were  taken  by  a  devoted 
band,  of  which  Eev.  J.  F.  Speight,  Eev.  Alson  Gray,  and  Eev. 
W.  H.  Wills  were  leaders.  In  Georgia,  Thurman  and  others  were 
in  the  van.    In  Alabama  and  the  far  South  P.  T.  Graves,  Bibb, 

1  Henkle's  "  Life  of  Bascom,"  pp.  290-297. 

2  It  was  first  issued  in  1840,  and  continued  until  1853,  iiiclusive,  and  was  a  valu- 
able repertory  of  church  statistics  and  general  information,  quite  useful  in  its 
day.  Several  attempts  have  since  been  made  at  various  times  to  revive  such  a 
publication,  but  have  failed  either  of  proper  presentation  or  support.  The  Bassett 
series  complete  is  in  the  writer's  possession. 


POLEMICS  IN  FULL  FLOWER 


339 


and  others  rallied  the  scattered  forces  and  established  foci  for 
missionary  ventures. 

It  was  a  period  of  unwonted  activity,  excited  by  a  renewal  of 
the  controversial  aspects  of  Eeform  and  the  slavery  agitation  by 
the  partisans,  North,  South,  and  in  the  newly  formed  Wesleyan 
Methodist  Church  in  the  Northwest.  Dr.  Bond,  as  editor  of  the 
New  York  Christian  Advocate,  intimidated  by  the  bold  and  for- 
midable front  the  South  presented,  had  the  temerity  to  offer  as  a 
compromise  an  arrangement  very  similar  to  that  which  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  offered;  to  wit, 
Annual  Conference  jurisdiction  over  the  matter  of  slavery.  About 
this  time  Rev.  W.  A.  Smith  retired  from  the  so-called  Shiloh  dis- 
cussion with  Whitfield  on  the  merits  of  "  radical "  Reform,  and 
made  a  public  challenge  to  Dr.  Bond  to  discuss  the  issues  of  the 
now  sundered  old  Church  on  slavery,  and  this  was  immediately 
followed  by  another  challenge  from  Rev.  Luther  Lee  of  the  True 
Wesleyan  to  meet  Dr.  Bond,  if  he  declined  to  accept  that  issued 
by  Dr.  Smith;  but  between  these  cross  fires  he  discreetly  de- 
clined them  both,  but  rang  his  shield  more  noisily  than  ever  in 
the  official  organ.  To  cap  the  climax  of  this  polemical  rage, 
Alexander  McCaine,  from  his  home  in  the  South,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  recrudescence  of  controversy,  made  a  public  challenge 
through  the  official  and  secular  papers  to  any  Bishop  or  Travelling 
Preacher  of  the  old  Church,  offering  to  prove  fraud  in  the  organi- 
zation of  that  Church  by  the  suppression  of  true  and  the  substi- 
tution of  false  documents  at  its  Conference  of  1784.  It  goes  for 
the  saying  that  it  was  not  accepted. 

A  shadow  comes  over  the  brightening  prospects  of  the  new 
Church  by  the  announcement  that  Asa  Shinn  had  been  removed 
from  his  Western  home  to  the  Maryland  Hospital  for  the  insane 
in  the  autumn  of  1844,  his  malady  having  returned  for  the  fourth 
time.  It  was  hoped  that  he  would  again  recover,  but  soon  there- 
after he  lost  by  a  fire  nearly  all  his  propert}^  in  Pittsburgh,  so 
that  his  family  were  no  longer  able  to  bear  the  expense  of  his 
maintenance  at  the  Maryland  asylum,  and  arrangements  were 
made  for  his  removal  to  one  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  continued 
until  June,  1847. 

In  the  late  summer  of  1844,  a  camp-meeting  was  held  near 
Snow  Hill,  Maryland,  by  Rev.  L.  W.  Bates,  then  a  youthful 
itinerant,  which  was  so  remarkable  in  its  spiritual  power  that  it 
was  adjourned  to  Drummondtown,  and  continued  some  weeks, 
with  an  aggregate  of  conversions  of  fifty  at  the  camp  and  thirty- 


340 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


two  at  the  Drummondtown  schoolhouse.  A  narrative  of  its 
Pentecostal  character  is  given  in  the  official  paper,  October  19, 
1844.  The  Olive  Leaf,  with  Eev.  E.  M.  Lathrop  as  editor  and 
proprietor,  was  started  at  Vandalia,  111.,  October,  1844,  in  the 
interest  of  the  Western  cause,  despite  the  fact  that  the  Western 
Recorder  was  struggling  to  maintain  itself  in  the  same  section. 
It  had  but  a  brief  existence,^  and  was  another  melancholy  illus- 
tration of  this  eruptive  fever  for  Church  papers  without  a  basis 
of  support.  The  Christiaji  Sun  of  New  York  ceased  to  shine  by 
the  expulsion  of  its  editor  from  the  Conference,  October,  1844. 
"Tracts  for  the  Times,"  a  pamphlet  by  Eev.  S.  Lowell,  was  issued 
at  Boston,  in  answer  to  Rev.  Dr.  Abel  Stevens's  "  Tracts  for  the 
Times,"  ^  on  church  government,  November,  1844.  The  Norfolk, 
Va.,  church  was  destroyed  by  fire,  March,  1845,  involving  great 
loss  and  corresponding  discouragement  to  the  local  cause,  but  it 
was  finally  rebuilt  at  much  self-sacrifice.  A.  S.  Naudain,  an 
original  Reformer  of  Maryland,  deceased  February  13,  1845. 
Rev.  Albritain  Jones,  of  North  Carolina,  original  Reformer, 
passed  away  July,  1845.  Rev.  James  Reed,  an  early  Reformer, 
deceased  September,  1845. 

Pause  is  made  that  the  death  of  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen  may  be 
announced  and  such  tribute  paid  to  his  memory  as  restriction  of 
space  in  this  History  makes  possible.  While  industriously  en- 
gaged in  preparation  for  the  principalship  of  Snethen  Seminary, 
in  Iowa  City,  he  called  on  one  of  his  daughters  at  Princeton,  Ind., 
where  he  was  taken  seriously  ill,  and  after  six  weeks  of  suffering 
passed  to  his  heavenly  home  in  the  triumph  of  faith,  on  Friday, 
May  30,  1845.  He  was  born  November  16,  1769,  and  was  conse- 
quently in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age.  The  events  of  his 
useful  and  remarkable  life  have  already  been  given  in  the  course 
of  this  History,  of  which  he  makes  so  large  a  part.    For  a 

1  Within  a  year  it  was  reported  defunct,  but  it  was  premature  —  arising  from 
its  removal  to  Greenville,  111.,  where  it  was  increased  in  size  and  the  name 
changed  to  the  Protestant  Banner,  with  E.  M.  Lathrop  as  editor,  January,  1846, 
at  62  a  year.  One  cannot  but  admire  such  zeal  for  a  cause,  if  without  business 
knowledge.    It  did  not  long  survive  its  rejuvenation. 

2  It  was  during  the  course  of  these  Tracts  that  Stevens  provoked  anjew  the  old 
controversy  by  averring  "  it  cannot  be  denied  that  their  innovation  has  proved 
abortive."  This  in  the  face  of  a  numerical  growth  quite  equal  to  anything  in 
church  history  and  under  disabilities  experienced  by  all  new  denominational  ven- 
tures. The  Weslcyan  Methodists  had  practically  adopted  the  constitutional  frame- 
work of  the  Reformers,  and  it  was  a  renewal  of  the  lay-delegation  question  in 
sundry  places  that  made  such  partisan  declarations  a  necessity  in  the  absence  of 
better  arguments.  The  ofl&cial  organ  vigorously  refuted  the  loose  and  unwar- 
ranted averment. 


DECEASE  OF  NICHOLAS  SNETHEN  841 


masterful  recapitulation  of  these  stirring  events,  as  well  as  much 
other  matter  of  just  reflection  and  appropriate  moralizing,  the 
reader  who  would  have  the  career  of  this  distinguished  man  be- 
fore him  in  bird's-eye  view  is  referred  to  Colhouer's  "Founders," 
which  devotes  thirty-three  pages  to  the  task  of  portrayal  of  his 
unique  and  preeminent  character.  Of  these  reflections  none  is 
more  true  than  the  dictum :  "  He  did  not  only  seem  to  hear  the 
footstep  of  coming  generations,  but  by  intuition  to  anticipate 
their  wants  and  the  means  and  manner  of  supplying  them.  His 
zeal  for  the  cause  of  Christ  was  as  great  as  his  sagacity,  and 
limited  only  by  his  ability  to  do  good."  Characteristic  of  him  is 
the  incident  of  his  dying  bed.  Calling  for  a  looking-glass  and 
two  candles  to  be  held,  one  on  either  side,  he  requested  to  be 
raised  in  bed  that  he  might  for  the  last  time  survey  his  own 
features.  Examining  his  face  for  a  few  moments,  he  uttered 
this  prayer  of  faith :  "  My  God,  I  thank  thee  that  thou  hast  made 
me  in  thine  own  image,  and  hast  preserved  me  to  show  forth  thy 
glory.  Now,  0  Lord,  I  resign  the  body  which  thou  gavest  into 
thine  own  hands."  His  remains  repose  in  a  family  lot  with  an 
appropriate  monument  in  the  cemetery  at  Princeton,  Ind.  Though 
memorial  services  were  held  in  various  places  in  the  new  Church, 
notably  that  in  Baltimore  with  the  sermon  by  Dr.  Francis  Waters, 
but  two  of  the  old  side  Advocates  made  any  mention  of  his  death 
at  the  time.  Taking  advantage  of  a  phrase  used  by  James  E. 
Williams  in  a  eulogy  upon  him,  and  out  of  its  associated  place, 
—  "he  theorized  about  everything,"  —  Dr.  Stevens  in  his  "His- 
tory" seizes  upon  it  as  a  clew  to  his  differences  with  the  old 
Church  polity.  It  was  not  ingenuous,  but  even  thirty  years  ago 
nothing  better  could  be  expected  from  her  chroniclers.  Shortly 
after  Snethen's  death,  his  son,  Worthington  G.,  issued  a  pros- 
pectus for  a  biography,  but,  not  meeting  with  the  requisite  re- 
sponse, it  was  delayed  until  the  generation  that  knew  him  had  all 
passed  away.  His  posthumous  literary  remains  as  compiled  by 
the  son  have  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Pittsburgh  Book 
Concern.  The  writer  once  made  a  careful  examination  of  them, 
and  they  are  so  voluminous  that  the  whole  could  not  be  contained 
in  less  than  eight  octavo  volumes:  sermons,  essays,  lectures, 
periodical  contributions,  and  the  biography.  General  Methodism 
has  a  future  day  of  reckoning  which  may  call  for  the  publication 
of  at  least  large  selections  from  these  remains.  Prophet,  Priest, 
and  King  of  Methodist  lay-representation,  making  this  record 
just  fifty  years  to  a  month  since  thy  departure,  the  period  hastens 


342 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


when  the  dissevered  Churches  of  a  common  Methodism  shall 
acknowledge  thee  Eight  and  Eighteous,  and  shall  crown  thee 
with  the  bays  and  blessings  of  a  complete  Vindication! 

The  irrepressible  conflict  in  the  new  Church  since  the  division  of 
the  old,  was  formally  declared  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  by  the  Conven- 
tion of  Southern  Conferences  in  May,  1845,  by  a  vote  of  ninety- 
four  to  three,  giving  momentum  and  power  to  the  antislavery 
sentiment  and  determination  of  the  Conferences  North  and  West, 
so  that  within  a  year  the  Western  Recorder  of  March  26,  1846, 
published  the  resolutions  of  quite  a  number  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Conferences  expressed  in  varying  degrees  of  acerbity 
and  uncompromising  opposition  to  the  institution  of  slavery  and 
of  any  moral  complicity  with  it.  Eepresentatives  to  the  ensuing 
General  Conference  were  selected  in  view  of  it  as  the  burning 
question  of  the  times.  Statistics  showed  a  numerical  decrease  in 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  for  the  year  1844-45  of  36,000 
members  in  the  Northern  states,  many  of  them  seceders  to  the 
Wesleyans  in  northwestern  New  York.  Gettysburg  College,  Pa., 
of  the  Lutheran  Church,  conferred  the  doctorate  of  divinity  upon 
Thomas  H.  Stockton,  September,  1845,  which  he  subsequently 
declined.  October,  1845,  Eev.  John  Percival,  of  Virginia,  one 
of  the  "expelled,"  and  an  active  original  Eeformer,  deceased, 
followed  about  a  month  later  by  John  Victor  of  Lynchburg,  Va., 
one  of  the  "expelled"  laymen,  and  a  noble  original  Eeformer. 
July  26,  1845,  at  the  close  of  the  volume,  Augustus  Webster  re- 
signed the  editorship  of  the  Church  organ,  but  accommodated  the 
Book  Committee  by  service  until  they  could  select  a  successor. 
Dr.  J.  F.  Bellamy  of  North  Carolina,  from  Greenville  circuit,  and 
representative-elect  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  deceased 
February,  1846.  Some  months  before  he  had  reviewed  Williams's 
"  History  "  in  the  official  paper  as  partial  to  Maryland,  and  had 
collected  material  for  a  history  doing  for  North  Carolina  Ee- 
formers  what  this  had  done  for  Maryland,  as  he  saw  it.  This 
material,  during  his  last  illness,  he  ordered  destroyed.  Eev. 
John  Paris  wrote  a  "History,"  which  was  published  in  1849,  and 
is  an  admirable  compend,  preserving  important  documents  and 
speeches  of  Eeformers  in  North  Carolina,  and  presenting  suc- 
cinctly the  course  of  Eeform  East  and  West,  as  well  as  a  valuable 
appendix  on  the  origin  of  Methodist  Episcopacy.^    It  found  a 

1  "  History  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  giving  a  general  view  of  the 
causes  and  events  that  led  to  the  Organization  of  that  Church ;  and  a  more  par- 
ticular account  of  Transactions  in  North  Carolina  never  before  published,  with 


ALSON  GRAY. 


W.   W.  WILLS. 


CURRENT  EVENTS  OF  MOMENT 


343 


wide  circulation,  but  was  not  republished.  The  Church  never 
had  a  truer  friend  and  more  devoted  minister  than  John  Paris, 
D.D.,  and  his  name  is  wrought  into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of 
the  cause  in  North  Carolina. 

The  frontiers  South  and  West  were  plentiful  of  examples  of 
individual  missionary  zeal  and  heroic  devotion  to  the  principles 
of  the  new  Church.  Laboring  with  their  own  hands,  or  expend- 
ing in  self-support  the  hard  earnings  of  earlier  days,  these  men 
carried  the  banner  of  Mutual  Rights  into  distant  fields,  not  a  few 
of  them  subject  to  the  temptation  of  good  support  in  the  mother 
Church,  if  they  would  turn  aside;  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  this 
History  to  embalm  their  memory  wherever  extant  records  make  it 
possible.  Notwithstanding  the  distractions  of  the  slavery  agita- 
tion, much  true  evangelistic  work  was  done  in  the  quadrennium 
now  about  to  close,  and  deep  interest  was  manifested  in  the  elec- 
tion of  representatives  to  the  impending  fourth  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Church.  The  old  leadership  was  dropping  away 
by  death  and  age,  and  it  remained  to  be  demonstrated  whether 
or  not  the  younger  men  would  conserve  its  principles  with  any- 
thing like  equal  self-abnegation. 

The  fourth  General  Conference  assembled  at  the  Sixth  Street 
church,  Cincinnati,  0.,  on  Tuesday,  May  5,  1846,  at  9  a.m.  Dr. 
Francis  AVaters  was  called  to  the  chair.  The  following  were  found 
to  be  members :  *  — 

Pittsburgh 


Ministers 
George  Brown 
Charles  Avery  i 
William  Reeves 
P.  T.  Laishley 
F.  A.  Davis 
John  Cowl 


Laymen 
John  H.  Deford 
F.  H.  Pierpont 
J.  W.  Phillips 
Charles  Craig 
T.  L.  Porter  1 
W.  Hart  1 


Muskingum 


Cornelius  Springer 
Z.  Bagan 
Joel  Dalby,  Jr. 
John  Burns 
Geo.  Clancy 
R.  Andrew 
Israel  Thrapp 


John  Bell 

S.  Rodman 

W.  B.  Kerlin 

J.  Hildrethi 

T.  Campbell 

J.  Reed  i  (deceased) 

A.  W.  Beatty 


an  Appendix,"  etc.,  by  Rev.  John  Paris.  Baltimore.  Printed  by  Sherwood  &  Co. 
1849.  12mo.  411  pp.  Sheep.  Several  copies  are  in  the  writer's  possession,  but 
like  Williams's  "History,"  it  is  now  rare. 

*  Official  Manuscript  Minutes.  i  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
A.  H.  Bassett 
R.  M.  Dalby 
Jos.  J.  White 
James  E.  Wilson 


John  Clarke,  Jr. 
W.  H.  Collins 


W.  E.  Martin  (Alt.) 
James  Gay 


R.  Bairdi 


D.  H.  Stephens 
Samuel  Morrison 
Cyrus  Jeffries 
W.  B.  Evans  i 


S.  M.  Short 


Ira  Hogan 
B.  Danforthi 


Z.  Boynton 

J.  G.  Whitfield 
R.  B.  Thomson 


A.  G.  Brewer! 


Wm.  Bellamy 
Wm.  H.  Wills 
John  Paris 


Ohio 

Laymen 
James  Foster 
D.  C.  Carson 
M.  Kennedy 
H.  Snowdeni 

Illinois 

Joel  Rice 
C.  Rice 

North  Illinois 

S.  Turner 

Michigan 

H.  Brownson 

Pennsylvania 

B.  Marvin  1 

Indiana 

William  Smith 
N.  T.  Catterlin  i 
Wm.  Morrison  1 
Edward  Jeans  i 

Genesee 

Daniel  Upton 

Onondaga 

L.  B.  Morris  1 

Maine 

R.  Johnston! 

Vermont 

Eli  Smith  i 

Virginia 

M.  Langhorne,  JtA 
J.  G.  Atkins  1 

South  Carolina 

Geo.  M.  Keils  i 

North  Carolina 

Spier  Whitaker 

John  F.  Bellamy  i  (deceased) 

J.  L.  Swift  1 

1  Absent. 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1846 


Ministers 
M.  W.  Smith 
J.  C.  Wallace  1 


W.  W.  Hiin 
P.  S.  Graves  1 
A.  A.  Lipscomb  i 
J.  Meeki 


Enos  Fletcher 


K.  W.  Morris 


J.  G.  Walker  1 


A.  Rushing 


J.  B.  Goodenoughi 


H.  C.  Stillwell 


Samuel  Buddi 


Francis  Waters 
Eli  Henkle 
Jno.  S.  Reese 
J.  Varden 
Isaac  Webster 
U.  Ward 
J.  R.  Williams 
Thomas  Sims 
L.  R.  Reese 


T.  F.  Norrisi 


Georoii. 


Alabama 


Mississippi 
Tennessee 
Arkansas 
Louisiana 


Laymen 
John  Webb  i 
John  Bassi 


B.  Little  1 
B.  S.  Bibb  1 
J.  II.  Smith  1 
E.  Fowler  1 


N.  B.  Whitehead 


J.  L.  Armstrong 
Abel  Johnston  ^ 


S.  P.  Geei 


Champlain 

Allen  Windsor  ^ 

HUNTSVILLB 

H.  R.  Beaver 

New  Jersey 

E.  Carlisle  i 

Maryland 

J.  W.  Richardson! 
Wesley  Starr 
Wm.  Doughty  1 
A.  L.  Withers 
T.  R.  Brown 
J.  Shriver 
R.  Tall  1 
Peter  Light  i 
J.  B.  Mathews  ^ 

Boston 

W.  H.  White 


T.  K.  WitseP 


New  York 

Wm.  Woodi 

1  Absent. 


346 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


This  roster  shows  that  120  had  been  elected,  and  48  of  these 
were  not  present.  Twenty-seven  Conferences  were  recognized, 
indicating  that  the  new  Church  had  now  become  continental, 
with  an  organization  in  nearly  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  and 
in  some  of  them  two  Conferences.  While  there  is  no  extant 
evidence  that  the  slavery  agitation  had  anything  to  do  with 
this  large  absenteeism,  as  entire  delegations  of  the  extreme 
sections,  such  as  South  Carolina  and  Alabama,  were  solidly 
absent,  as  well  as  a  number  of  the  smaller  ones  of  the  North  and 
East,  this  consideration  may  have  entered  into  it,  but  the  propor- 
tion of  over  one-third  absent  can  easily  be  accounted  for  by  the 
distance,  expense,  and  hardship  of  such  a  journey  as  it  involved. 
In  Maryland  four  of  the  nine  ministers  are  unstationed.  The 
question  of  the  legality  of  alternate  delegates  came  up  in  this 
Conference,  as  no  provision  had  been  made  for  such  in  the 
Electoral  College ;  and  it  was  decided  that  all  alternates  should 
have  their  seats,  and  the  defect  of  legislation  was  remedied.  T. 
H.  Stockton  was  elected  to  honorary  membership  with  the  privi- 
lege of  debate,  as  it  was  known  that  he  was  present  in  the  interest 
of  the  Philadelphia  "  mission  "  question.  Thus,  on  this,  and  not 
a  few  other  occasions,  the  Church  expressed  its  respect  and 
deference  to  this  gifted  brother,  a  fact  he  did  not  always  seem,  to 
appreciate.  Evidence  was  called  for  in  proof  of  the  legal  exist- 
ence of  a  number  of  Conferences,  of  whose  organization  the 
official  paper  had  received  no  account,  but  were  represented  in 
the  General  Conference.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  an 
election  of  permanent  officers  was  held,  and  on  the  first  ballot 
James  G.  Wilson  and  Ancil  H.  Bassett  were  elected  Secretaries, 
both  of  the  Ohio  Conference,  and  on  the  fourth  ballot  Dr.  Francis 
Waters  of  Maryland  was  elected  President,  the  vote  not  recorded. 

It  is  evident  from  the  minutes  that  Rev.  James  Gay  of  Michi- 
gan was  the  extreme  antislavery  representative  of  the  body,  and 
John  H.  Deford  of  the  Pittsburgh  representative  of  the  conserva- 
tives. Their  motions  and  counter  motions,  reports  and  counter  re- 
ports, run  through  the  deliberations.  This  and  the  Philadelphia 
"  mission "  question  occupied  nearly  all  the  time  of  the  Confer- 
ence. On  the  slavery  question  a  resolution,  offered  by  H. 
Brownson,  lay -member  from  Michigan,  reads,  "Resolved,  that 
this  Conference  declare  slavery,  or  slaveholding,  to  be  sinful  in 
all  its  relations,  and  that  no  Conference  shall  be  bound  to  hold 
fellowship  with  any  Conference  that  sustains  slavery."  J.  H. 
Deford  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  offered  a  resolution,  "  Re- 


SLAVERY  AND  ''MISSION''  QUESTIONS  347 


solved,  that  this  Conference  regard  the  efforts  of  Abolitionists, 
and  all  other  attempts  to  interfere  with  the  slave  question,  as 
improper,  on  the  part  of  a  religious  body,  and  an  unwarrantable 
disturbance  of  the  regulations  of  the  civil  government."  To  com- 
plete a  triangle  South  Carolina  Conference  had  passed  a  series 
of  resolutions  indorsing  slavery  and  recommending  Alexander 
McCaine's  "Defence  of  Slavery  from  the  Scriptures."  One  saga- 
cious, quiet  man,  himself  in  sentiment  antislavery,  amid  all  this 
conflict  and  divergence,  was  moving  among  the  representatives, 
and,  when  he  was  sure  of  his  ground,  toward  the  close  of  the 
session,  and  after  the  majority  and  the  minority  reports  on 
slavery  had  been  discussed  to  the  full,  offered  the  following 
compromise  resolution :  "  Kesolved,  that  in  the  judgment  of  this 
General  Conference,  the  holding  of  slaves  is,  under  many  circum- 
stances, a  sin  against  God,  and,  in  such  cases,  should  be  con- 
demned by  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church;  nevertheless,  it  is 
our  opinion  that  under  some  circumstances  it  is  not  sinful.  This 
General  Conference  does  not  feel  itself  authorized  by  the  Consti- 
tution to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  by  a  solemn  vote 
we  present  to  the  Church  our  judgment,  that  the  different  Annual 
Conferences,  respectively,  should  make  their  own  regulations  on 
this  subject  so  far  as  authorized  by  the  Constitution."  Signed, 
John  S.  Keese;  while  Cornelius  Springer  moved  its  adoption. 
Then  a  division  of  it  was  called  for,  and,  after  much  manoeu- 
vring, it  was  passed  in  sections.  The  first  was  carried  by  a  vote 
of  54  to  6,  the  second  by  a  vote  of  45  to  11,  the  third  by  a  vote  of 
45  to  16.  Subsequently  James  Gay  and  others  offered  protest, 
and  the  question  was  only  disposed  of  by  a  motion  to  admit  no 
more  reference  to  it  during  the  session. 

Kunning  abreast  with  this  question,  the  Philadelphia  "mis- 
sion "  subject  was  considered.  The  action  of  the  Maryland  Con- 
ference in  recognizing  Stockton's  church  in  Philadelphia  and  St. 
John's,  Baltimore,  as  missions,  was  declared  unconstitutional. 
This  was  a  score  gained  by  the  Kestrictive  rule  men.  Then, 
after  reports  and  counter  reports,  Dr.  Waters  found  a  medium  of 
settlement,  to  the  effect  that  the  General  Conference  set  off  the 
churches  in  Philadelphia  as  a  Mission  Conference,  under  certain 
regulations.  The  motion  setting  off  a  new  district,  to  be  called 
Philadelphia,  was  carried  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five  to  twelve,  those 
voting  in  the  negative  being  Springer,  Henkle,  L.  K.  Reese, 
Williams,  Varden,  Rodman,  Foster,  Whitaker,  Beaver,  Starr, 
J.  Rice,  and  William  Collins.    Levi  R.  Reese  made  strenuous 


348 


EISTOBT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


efforts  to  have  it  modified,  so  that  any  churches  formed  in  the 
new  district  of  thirty  or  more  members  should  be  subject  to  the 
Restrictive  rule ;  but  it  failed  by  a  large  majority,  and  the  ques- 
tion passed  out  of  the  General  Conference,  leaving  it,  in  fact,  as 
unsettled  as  it  was  before ;  and  the  respective  champions  returned 
home  to  renew  the  discussion  on  "Missions." 

The  unstationed  minister  question  came  in  for  its  share  of 
attention,  but  nothing  was  done  to  alter  the  status  of  this  class. 
The  ratio  of  representation  was  fixed  at  fifteen  hundred  instead 
of  two  thousand.  Delegates  were  appointed  to  the  "World's 
Convention  of  Christian  Protestant  Ministers,"  to  meet  in  the 
city  of  London,  England,  August,  1846.  T.  H.  Stockton,  who 
was  one  of  the  delegates  named,  proposed  to  attend,  but  declined 
after  correspondence  with  the  originators,  who  had  not  invited 
Universalists  and  Unitarians  as  "Christian  ministers."  On  the 
election  for  editor  of  the  official  paper  the  vote  stood,  E.  Yeates 
Reese,  25;  D.  B.  Dorsey,  15;  T.  H.  Stockton,  8.  The  Book 
Committee  was  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  expediency  of 
establishing  a  Branch  of  the  Book  Concern  in  the  West.  Dr. 
Waters  offered  a  series  of  resolutions  on  the  decease  of  Nicholas 
Snethen.  On  motion  "'the  Champlain  District  was  dissolved." 
There  had  been  some  irregularities  in  its  proceedings,  and  now, 
yielding  to  the  pressure  and  in  full  sympathy  with  the  Abolition 
movement,  as  it  was  distinctively  called  in  those  days,  they  had 
passed  over  to  the  Wesleyan  Methodists.  The  membership  was 
about  eight  hundred,  and  the  action  was  a  menace  to  the  new 
Church  in  the  Northwest,  which  finally  necessitated  the  separa- 
tion of  1858 ;  not  individuals  only  were  implacably  dissatisfied 
with  the  relation  of  the  Free  State  Conferences  to  those  of  the 
South,  but  whole  churches  and  Conferences  seceded  as  the 
politico-antislavery  party  strengthened  in  the  North.  Action 
was  taken  looking  to  the  enlargement  and  extension  of  Williams's 
"  History  of  the  Church  "  as  a  permanent  record  of  Reform,  with 
Williams,  Waters,  and  Levi  R.  Reese  as  a  committee ;  but  nothing 
ever  came  of  it. 

The  following  chairmen  of  standing  committees  were  announced 
by  the  President  on  the  third  day  of  the  session:  Journals,  P.  T. 
Laishley;  Judiciary,  John  S.  Reese;  Executive,  George  Brown; 
Literary,  John  Burns;  Means  of  Grace,  Eli  Henkle;  Finance, 
Wesley  Starr;  Orders,  Isaac  Webster;  Home  Missions,  J.  S. 
Reese.  A  Committee  of  Foreign  Correspondence,  appointed 
by  the  previous  General  Conference,  was  continued,  to  keep  in 


STATISTICS  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 


349 


touch  with  the  Eeform  Methodists  of  England.  The  affairs 
of  the  Book  Concern  were  thoroughly  investigated,  and  its 
relation  continued  by  resolution  offered  by  J.  S.  Reese,  "Re- 
solved, that  in  our  opinion  the  Church  Periodical  should  be  con- 
tinued, and  remain  under  the  control  of  the  General  Conference." 
The  Western  Recorder  was  commended  to  the  patronage  of  the 
Church.  For  the  first  time  the  new  Church  had  methodized  its 
affairs  sufficiently  to  be  able  to  offer  something  like  a  full  tabula- 
tion of  its  statistics;  still  they  were  very  imperfect.  A  summary 
of  the  full  table  presented  by  the  committee,  A.  H.  Bassett, 
Chairman,  is  as  follows:  Annual  Conferences,  26;  stations,  66; 
circuits,  325 ;  itinerant  ministers  and  preachers,  746 ;  unstationed 
ministers  and  preachers,  628.  Members  by  Conference  segre- 
gation: Pittsburgh,  6412;  Muskingum,  7244;  Ohio,  4509;  Indi- 
ana, 3764;  Illinois,  2393;  North  Illinois,  788;  Michigan,  1733; 
Pennsylvania,  1022;  Genesee,  1443;  Onondaga,  1400;  Vermont, 
1024;  Maine,  500;  Boston,  500;  New  York,  1730;  New  Jersey, 
840;  Maryland,  9175;  Virginia,  2675;  North  Carolina,  3689; 
South  Carolina,  1645;  Georgia,  2078;  Alabama,  4082;  Missis- 
sippi, 1008;  Louisiana,  500;  Arkansas,  1000;  Huntsville,  800; 
Tennessee,  1609.  Total,  including  ministers  stationed  and  un- 
stationed, as  reported,  64,944.  Value  of  church  property,  total, 
$563,971,  of  which  amount  sums  over  $10,000  were  in:  Pitts- 
burgh, $65,490;  Muskingum,  $58,756;  Ohio,  $42,000;  Indiana, 
$16,900;  Genesee,  $10,800;  New  York,  $53,000;  Maryland, 
$160,000;  Virginia,  $41,150;  South  Carolina,  $29,500;  Alabama 
$37,000.  Yet  with  these  totals,  an  accretion  of  thirteen-fold  in 
members,  taking  5000  as  the  unit  for  1830,  within  16  years,  and 
an  excess  of  half  a  million  of  church  property,  746  travelling 
ministers,  and  325  circuits,  and  66  stations  in  26  Annual  Con- 
ferences, the  new  Church  made  answer  to  the  knowingly  false 
declaration  of  Dr.  Bond,  in  1833,  "  Reform  is  dead ;  let  its  ashes 
be  undisturbed,"  and  to  Dr.  Stevens's  equally  false  dictum  of 
1845,  only  a  year  before  these  statistics  were  published,  "It 
cannot  be  denied  that  their  innovation  has  proved  abortive." 

Such  bald  statements  can  be  accounted  for  only  on  the  score 
of  gross  ignorance,  deep-seated  prejudice,  and  a  perpetuation 
of  Dr.  Bond's  impotent  purpose  to  "write  down  Reform." 
For  nearly  fifty  years  since  this  General  Conference  the  press  of 
the  mother  Church,  largely,  it  may  be  conceded,  by  mere  echo  of 
each  other's  voices,  has  continued  to  write  down  Reform;  and, 
truly,  if  it  had  been  possible  in  the  nature  of  the  case  to  write  it 


350  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


down  by  slurs,  minifications,  disparagements,  invidious  declara- 
tions, not  wanting  in  some  of  the  latest  issues  of  their  Advocates, 
it  had  long  since  ceased  to  be.  Bishop  M'Tyeire,  only  a  decade 
of  years  ago,  in  his  "  History  of  Methodism  "  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Church,  South,  sees  and  deplores  this  weakness  of 
historiographers,  and  employs  language  in  his  Preface  which  the 
writer  adopts,  but  from  which  it  shall  be  shown  M'Tyeire  departs 
when  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  Reformers :  "  Moral  or  abstract 
truth  knows  no  point  of  the  compass,  but  historical  truth  does; 
and  the  truth  of  history  proves  this.  Methodism  in  the  South 
has  suffered  injustice  from  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  pre- 
sented by  learned,  honest,  and  able  writers  in  the  Xorth.  The 
writer  does  not  presume  to  be  free  from  the  infirmities  to  which 
he  is  liable  in  common  with  others.  He  proposes  to  tell  the  truth 
as  he  sees  it;  and  this  may  lead  him  to  tell  truths  affecting  others 
which  they  have  not  seen,  and  to  present  admitted  facts  in  a  dif- 
ferent light."  Applying  this  touchstone,  how  well  does  he  suc- 
ceed when  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  new  Church?  Let  him  be 
cited :  "  A  pure  doctrine  has  been  ministered  at  its  altars ;  and 
while  the  denomination  has  not  prospered,  not  a  few  bright 
examples  of  devout  congregations,  and  of  personal  piety,  have 
adorned  it.  Its  ministry  and  press  have  never  been  without 
strong  men,  and  the  members  have  been  generous.  Its  polity 
has  been  marked  with  an  extreme  jealousy  of  power,  which  is 
lodged  nowhere,  but  'distributed';  and  there  are  guards,  and 
balances,  and  checks.  A  brake  on  the  wheels  of  a  railroad  train 
is  a  good  thing  to  keep  from  going  too  fast;  but  a  railroad  train 
constructed  on  the  principle  of  a  brake,  will  not  go  at  all.  This 
honor  justly  belongs  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church:  its 
one  good,  peculiar  principle  —  lay-delegation  —  has  of  late  been 
incorporated  into  the  chief  Methodist  bodies  of  Europe  and 
America."^    The  compliments  are  extorted  —  the  detractions 

1  "History  of  Methodism,"  p.  574.  It  may  be  well  to  note  another  deduction 
he  makes  from  partisan  information,  for  it  is  evident  the  Bishop  never  read  the 
Reform  literature  of  1820-30;  he  says,  p.  573:  "Unfortunately,  a  reform  which 
began  in  principles  drifted  largely  into  personalities.  '  The  most  ungracious  as- 
sault,' says  a  writer  well  informed  in  the  literature  of  the  day,  'was  that  which 
was  made  upon  Bishop  George.'  "  It  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  offset  this  aver- 
ment with  Alexander  McCaine's  own  re\iew  of  the  case,  as  he  was  the  other  party 
to  it,  as  found  in  the  Mutual  Rights  of  that  day.  And  if  anything  were  wanting 
to  rebut  the  statement  of  a  "  writer  well  informed,"  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Francis 
Waters  ought  to  be  sufficient.  By  general  consent  of  Reformers  and  anti-re- 
formers he  was  a  witness  of  unimpeached  veracity  and  calm,  judicial  mind,  who 
knew  every  Reform  writer  personally,  and  what  he  wrote  from  end  to  end  of  the 


m'tteire's  history  and  the  new  church  351 


may  be  excused.  The  good  man  chuckled,  it  may  be  imagined, 
when  he  penned  the  railroad  brake  illustration ;  but  what  about 
the  "  will  not  go  at  all, "  as  a  "  truth  of  history  "  ?  Dr.  M'Tyeire's 
knowledge  was  confined  to  the  South  during  and  after  the  Civil 
War,  when  the  new  Church  had  been  scattered  and  peeled,  and, 
like  his  own,  its  houses  of  worship  burnt,  and  congregations  dis- 
integrated by  the  threshing  of  the  iron-teethed  harrow,  and  may 
excuse  his  "has  not  prospered."  Like  the  plumed  knight,  it  has 
one  bright  feather  streaming  in  the  wind :  "  its  one,  good,  peculiar 
principle  —  lay-delegation."  But  his  Church  and  the  parent 
Methodism  everywhere  had  been  proclaiming  for  a  hundred  years 
that  it  was  not  "good."  They  had  remorselessly  expelled  and 
persecuted  its  advocates;  and  is  it  not  a  fact  that  it  is  time 
ingenuous  treatment  should  acknowledge  that  but  for  the  New 
Connexion  and  the  Primitive  Methodists  in  England  and  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  America  the  "  principle  "  of  lay- 
delegation  would  never  have  been  "  incorporated  into  the  chief 
Methodist  bodies  of  Europe  and  America"?  The  absolutely 
jocose  thing  about  this  "  damning  with  faint  praise, "  by  Bishop 
M'Tyeire,  is  the  fact  that  in  immediate  connection  he  says:  "An 
irrepressible  cause  of  discontent  and  schism  was  thus  removed  by 
a  secession,  which  carried  with  it  ministers  and  members,  who 
were  followed  by  sincere  regret.  Then  the  Church  had  rest  for 
a  season,  and  entered  upon  an  era  of  unprecedented  prosperity." 
And  then  he  cites  the  statistics,  showing  that  from  "1828  to 
1832  —  the  chief  period  of  secession  —  etc.,"  the  increase  of  the 
old  Church  was  about  an  hundred  and  thirty  thousand,  or  "  the 
largest  increase  the  Church  has  ever  known  in  the  same  period." 
That  is,  the  Lord  prospered  them,  for  getting  rid  of  lay-delega- 
tion and  its  agitators,  to  this  unprecedented  extent,  and  yet,  at 
the  same  time,  their  increase  does  not  compare  with  that  the 
Lord  gave  the  Reformers  for  introducing  lay-delegation  for  the 
sixteen  years  from  1830  to  1846.  The  brethren  have  so  little 
skill  in  handling  edged-tools  that  it  could  be  wished  they  would 
let  them  severely  alone  in  certain  connections. 

The  reader  will  excuse  this  long,  but  important,  digression 

controversy,  and  yet  as  touching  personalities,  abuse  of  speech,  evil  speaking, 
and  all  the  other  forms  of  crimination,  he  deliberately  declared,  "  No  other  use 
of  personal  character  had  been  made  in  the  Mutual  Rights  than  personal  illustra- 
tions of  the  defects  of  the  government  and  its  administration,  and  that  any 
travelling  preacher  had  been  defamed  in  its  pages  amounted  to  mere  assertion." 
And  if  any  critical  reader  would  farther  verify  its  truth  the  literature  complained 
of  is  all  accessible. 


352  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


from  the  General  Conference  proceedings,  and  recurrence  is  made 
to  record  the  fact  that  in  the  light  of  the  favorable  statistics  it 
was  moved  that  "the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  be  continued," 
and  it  was  further  moved  that  this  Board  "be  authorized  to  em- 
ploy missionaries  to  serve  in  Oregon " ;  and  out  of  it  came  the 
devoted  and  successful  labors  of  Rev.  Daniel  Bagley,  who  survives 
to  see  the  fruition  of  his  labors  there  and  elsewhere.  Place  and 
time  for  the  first  meeting  of  the  Iowa  and  the  Wabash  Confer- 
ences were  made;  and  then,  by  special  request,  the  Conference 
closed  with  prayer  by  the  President,  Dr.  Waters,  to  meet  in 
Baltimore,  May,  1850. 


CHAPTER  XX 


E.Yeates  Reese  reelected  editor  of  the  official  paper — Obituaries  of  Reformers ;  new 
Conferences  —  The  slavery  issue  —  Inauguration  of  fraternity  between  the  new 
Church  and  the  old  at  the  General  Conference  of  the  latter  in  Pittsburgh,  1848 

—  Secessions  in  Brooklyn,  N.Y.,  and  Philadelphia,  but  stood  aloof  from  the 
new  Church  —  More  obituaries  of  Reformers,  notably  of  Rev.  J.  R.  Williams 

—  Madison  College  at  Uniontown,  Pa.,  tendered  to  the  new  Church,  and  finally 
accepted ;  brief  history  of  the  misadventure ;  sectional  questions  at  the  bottom ; 
heroic  efforts  of  Rev.  Dr.  Brown  to  save  the  college ;  after  five  years  it  was 
abandoned — College  started  at  Cambridge,  O. ;  buildings  first  destroyed  by 
a  storm,  and,  when  rebuilt,  destroyed  by  fire,  ending  the  project  —  Sketch  of 
Rev.  W.  W.  Hill,  the  "Luther"  of  Reform  literature,  deceased  —  Anxiety 
among  the  representatives  elect  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  1850  on 
the  slavery  issue. 

June  30,  1846,  Augustus  Webster  retired  from  the  temporary 
extension  of  his  editorship  of  the  official  paper,  and  the  reelected 
editor,  after  a  retirement  of  one  quadrennium,  E.  Yeates  Reese, 
took  charge  of  it,  with  new  type  and  a  promising  outlook.  The 
circulation  at  this  date  was  about  three  thousand,  and  its  financial 
condition  would  have  been  fair  but  for  the  credit  system,  which 
kept  its  reported  assets  in  the  hands  of  non-paying  subscribers. 
Rev.  D.  H.  Stephens,  President  of  the  Indiana  Conference,  de- 
ceased September,  1846.  He  had  been  an  active  member  of  the 
preceding  General  Conference.  Rev.  Samuel  Norment  passed 
away  August,  1846,  an  able  member  of  the  Virginia  Conference 
from  1832.  Alexander  Waugh,  brother  of  Bishop  Beverly  Waugh, 
heretofore  noticed,  deceased  October,  1846.  Rev.  W.  H.  Bord- 
ley  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  an  original  Reformer  and  de- 
voted minister,  died  October,  1846.  Rev.  William  Bellamy  of 
the  North  Carolina  Conference,  an  original  Reformer,  deceased 
November,  1846.  Rev.  R.  Davidson  of  the  same  Conference, 
died  November,  1846.  Rev.  James  H.  Overstreet  of  Kentucky, 
an  original  Reformer,  deceased  February,  1847.  Rev.  J.  D. 
Hines,  original  Reformer  of  Kentucky,  deceased  June,  1846. 

A  Convention  was  called  in  New  Jersey,  December,  1846,  to 
protest  against  being  set  off  from  the  New  York  Conference  j  J.  F. 
VOL.  II  — 2  A  363 


354 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Felty,  Chairman,  and  W.  W.  Strickland,  Secretary.  It  was  con- 
fined to  the  northern  section  of  the  State,  and  as  the  outcome 
Paterson  and  a  few  other  points  were  annexed  to  New  York, 
and  so  remain  to  this  day.  September  16,  1846,  the  first  Wabash 
Annual  Conference,  as  set  off  from  the  Indiana  by  the  General 
Conference,  was  organized  at  Pleasant  Hill  chapel.^  The  first 
Iowa  Conference,  as  set  off  by  the  General  Conference,  met  in  the 
State  House,  Iowa  City,  October  13,  1846.^  The  first  Philadel- 
phia Conference  organized  after  the  action  of  the  General  Con- 
ference, and  as  a  sequel  to  their  temporary  agreement  so  to  set 
themselves  off  in  the  autumn  of  1846,  met  at  First  church, 
March  17,  1847.  It  elected  J.  G.  Wilson,  President,  and  E.  W. 
Davis,  Secretary.  T.  H.  Stockton  offered  a  series  of  six  resolu- 
tions, which  prevailed  with  some  dissent,  the  substance  of  which 
was  that  each  congregation  should  elect  their  own  relation  to  the 
Conference,  whether  as  circuit,  station,  or  mission,  and  that  all 
the  territory  should  be  declared  "unoccupied"  for  this  purpose. 
As  the  General  Conference  of  1846  granted  this  Conference  ex- 
ceptional privileges,  there  were  counter  petitions  which  expressed 
a  preference  for  the  Restrictive  Rule  feature.  After  the  action 
of  the  General  Conference  a  number  of  the  members  of  the  First 
church  withdrew  on  this  issue  and  organized  the  "Bethlehem 
Station."  Stockton,  in  an  after  conversation,  admitted  that  they 
were  the  "cream  of  his  church."  As  a  consequence  he  found 
himself  without  the  usual  financial  support,  and  resigned  the 
charge,  accepting  a  call  to  Cincinnati,  where  he  organized  "  The 
Association  of  Brotherly  Love,"  an  ideal  Christian  society,  which 
he  continued  to  foster  for  some  years,  but  which  was  in  evidence 
of  his  utter  unfitness  for  practical  affairs.  The  Philadelphia 
Conference  survived  three  years,  with  varying  condition,  but  its 
abnormal  relation  to  the  Church  as  connectionally  established,  as 
well  as  the  relation  of  St.  John's,  Baltimore,  produced  continued 
friction,  and  the  itinerant  party  under  the  Presidency  of  Levi 
R.  Reese,  in  Maryland,  getting  the  ascendency,  and  his  merited 

1  Joseph  Shipp  was  elected  President,  and  C.  Jeffries,  Secretary.  The  minis- 
ters were:  G.  Williams,  J.  C.  Wright,  J.  Alter,  H.  Beal,  W.  Williams,  A.  Paris, 
J.  McCIure,  P.  Smith,  G.  L.  Bodell,  G.  Evans,  F.  Long,  R.  G.  H.  Hauna,  S.  W. 
Widney,  T.  S.  Fackenburg.  The  delegates:  A.  Pearson,  A.  Scales,  L.  Garrettson, 
A.  H.  Whitford,  J.  Boxell,  N.  T.  Cutterlin,  J.  G.  Crawford,  J.  Bice,  T.  N.  Jones, 
J.  Zipes,  J.  Barbee,  S.  Duling. 

2  The  ministers  were:  Wm.  Patterson,  Robert  Miller,  Geo.  S.  Pierson,  W.  K. 
Talbot,  W.  K.  Barnes,  Oliver  W.  Kellogg,  Alexander  Coldwell.  The  delegates: 
Preston  J.  Friend,  Dr.  Enos  Metcalf,  Henry  Xesmith,  Geo.  Davison,  Wm.  H.  Col- 
lins (honorary). 


ISRAEL  THRAPP. 


JOHN  BURNvS. 


END  OF  PUILADELPUIA  ''MISSION'''  CONFERENCE  355 


preferment  as  the  President  of  the  ensuing  General  Conference 
of  1850,  which  met  in  Baltimore,  led  that  body  to  undo  what  it 
had  done  four  years  prior,  and  the  Philadelphia  Conference  was 
annexed  to  the  Maryland,  leading  to  the  independence  of  several 
of  the  congregations,  and  the  final  destruction  of  the  cause  in 
that  city.^  The  membership  within  the  Philadelphia  Conference 
at  its  first  session  was  843. 

The  Michigan  Conference  proposed  to  establish  the  Michigan 
Literary  Institute,  at  Leoni,  Jackson  County,  with  Kev.  E.  Bam- 
ford  as  Agent,  but  it  did  not  materialize  as  to  buildings,  though 
its  initial  work  was  promising,  forty  pupils  being  in  attendance. 
Rev.  Edmund  Rockford,  original  Reformer,  deceased  April,  1847. 
Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  M.  Meek,  an  original  Reformer,  died  April, 
1847.  Rev.  Thomas  Taylor,  of  North  Carolina,  deceased  just 
before  the  General  Conference,  and  to  which  he  was  a  representa- 
tive-elect. Amasa  Hollister,  a  Reformer  of  the  Pennsylvania 
district,  deceased  June,  1847,  aged  seventy-nine.  Rev.  Solomon 
Longworth,  original  Reformer,  deceased  November,  1847.  Rev. 
Arington  Gray,  original  Reformer,  deceased  December,  1847. 
Henry  Wigert  and  Francis  Coates,  of  Baltimore,  original  Re- 
formers, deceased  December,  1847. 

The  official  paper  makes  note  that  Rev.  Asa  Shinn,  accom- 
panied by  his  son  William,  spent  a  short  time  in  Baltimore  on 
his  way  home  to  Pittsburgh  from  Philadelphia,  apparently  again 
restored  to  mental  soundness,  June,  1847,  but  it  proved  illusive. 
The  Genesee  Conference,  at  its  session  of  1847,  passed  resolutions 
asking  the  other  Conferences  to  unite  with  them  in  a  call  for  a 
Convention  to  legislate  upon  slavery  and  blot  it  from  the  Church. 
The  Muskingum  Conference  reported  through  a  committee, — 
W.  Marshall,  Israel  Thrapp,  and  John  Burns, —  declining  to 
unite,  and  assigning  in  substance  three  reasons:  They  did  not 
feel  themselves  as  a  Conference  implicated  in  the  sin  of  slavery, 
though  convinced  of  its  moral  wrong;  it  would  result  in  a  divi- 
sion of  the  Church;  it  would  not  further  the  cause  of  emancipa- 

1  It  will  preserve  an  interesting  episode  in  the  church  history  from  oblivion  to 
give  the  Plan  of  Appointments  of  the  first  Conference,  etc.  First  church,  T.  H. 
Stockton  (mission) ;  Ebenezer,  J.  G.  Wilson  (mission)  ;  Brickmakers,  J.  R. 
Nichols  (mission  under  the  pastor's  protest) ;  Schuylkill,  Gth  street,  W.  T.  Eva 
(mission)  ;  Penn  township,  W.  Matchett  (mission) ;  Aston,  P.  Price ;  Bethlehem, 
A.  S.  Eversole  (station).  Conference  missionary,  H.  D.  Moore.  The  lay-delegates 
present:  John  Porter,  John  Mills,  James  Galliard,  John  S.  Fellton,  John  Weble, 
E.  W.  Davis.  Unstationed  ministers  and  preachers:  James  Moore,  Allen  Worth- 
ington,  G.  A.  Shryock,  John  Mills,  J.  J.  Gray.  The  printed  Minutes  of  the  three 
Conferences  held  are  in  the  writer's  possession. 


356 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  liEFORM 


tion.  But  as  the  years  passed  by  and  the  political  power  of  the 
antislavery  party  augmentedj  it  was  found  impossible  to  adhere 
to  such  conservative  ground  in  the  West  and  North.  The  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  North  and  West,  had  emancipated  itself 
from  all  complicity  by  the  act  of  separation;  the  Wesleyan 
Methodists,  growing  strong  upon  this  issue,  sent  messengers  to 
the  Conferences,  and  invited  them  to  come  out  of  "Sodom,"  and 
these  were  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  that  were  grinding 
the  new  Church  into  a  coalition  witli  them. 

Eev.  James  M.  Coy  of  Pennsylvania,  original  Keformer,  de- 
ceased November,  1847.  In  September,  1848,  the  Onondaga 
Conference  undertook  to  establish  a  weekly  religious  paper 
at  Clyde,  N.  Y.,  The  Northern  Methodist  Protestant,  with  J.  H. 
Hogan  and  James  P.  Long  as  editors;  but  after  a  year  or  more 
debts  were  contracted,  and  the  enterprise  was  abandoned  at  con- 
siderable loss  to  members  of  the  Conference.  The  Western  Re- 
corder iov  1847-48  contained  obituaries  of  Rev.  Jeremiah  Johnson, 
Reformer,  December  9,  1847;  Nicholas  Amos,  layman,  and  dele- 
gate to  General  Conference,  March  16,  1848;  Rev.  Daniel  Ireland, 
Reformer  and  member  of  Genesee  Conference  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  April  13,  1848;  Rev.  John  Fordyce,  of  Green  County,  Pa., 
early  Reformer,  June  15,  1848.  September  20,  1848,  the  first 
Texas  Conference,  at  Spring  Grove,  met  near  Moore's  store,  Bowie 
County,  with  H.  M.  A.  Cassiday,  President,  and  W.  S.  McClure, 
Secretar3^^  Rev.  William  Reeves  of  the  Ohio  Conference  pub- 
lished a  defence  of  the  ministry  of  women,  at  Putnam,  0.  His 
devoted  wife,  Hannah,  had  license  in  England,  and  in  this  country 
throughout  the  West,  and  occasionally  in  the  East,  officiated 
acceptably  in  the  pulpits,  and  that  of  the  old  Church  at  times,  and 
her  case  raised  at  this  early  period  a  question  which  has  been 
slow  of  solution  among  Methodists.  Though  sanctioned  by  John 
Wesley,  the  new  Church  has  been  much  agitated  by  it  in  the 
West,  and,  as  will  be  seen,  it  later  became  a  General  Conference 
question.  During  the  General  Conference  of  the  ^lethodist  Epis- 
copal Church  held  in  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May,  1848,  the  pulpits  of 
the  two  Reform  churches  were  tendered  it.  Tlie  tender  led  no 
doubt  to  careful  consideration,  as  on  its  determination  not  a  little 

1  The  ministers  were;  Azariah  Bone,  A.  Rushing,  Wm.  Southward,  W.  M. 
Elliott,  R.  R.  Tucker,  Jesse  Mings,  Geo.  P.  King,*  John  Freeman,  Joseph  Friend.* 
Unstationed,  Thomas  Stallcup,*  Ward  Taylor,  W.  S.  McClure.  W.  R.  Hart.  Lay- 
men: Iredell  Southward,  J.  H.  Painter,  Samuel  Davis,  W.  S.  McClure,  James  L. 
Weir,*  Bryant  Brown,*  John  Hart,  Sr.,  David  Lowe.* 

*  Absent. 


FRATERNITY  INAUGURATED  IN  1848  357 


depended,  but,  whether  from  a  high  expedience  or  true  Christian 
recognition  and  denominational  fellowship,  it  was  accepted  and 
emphasized,  Bishop  Waugh  preaching  in  the  Pittsburgh  church 
and  administered  the  Lord's  Supper  with  its  Discipline,  and 
Bishop  Morris  next  Sabbath  preached  in  the  Allegheny  church. 
They  were  both  strong,  flourishing  congregations ;  and  with  nearly 
thirty  Annual  Conferences  and  seventy-five  thousand  members, 
these  higli  functionaries,  both  of  whom  were  parties  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  1828,  must  have  had  curious  speculations  upon  the 
subject  of  Methodist  Reform,  and  the  treatment  meted  out  to  its 
originators.  In  this  act,  however,  the  olive  branch  was  tendered 
by  the  new  to  the  old,  and  accepted  by  them,  and  Christian  fra- 
ternity inaugurated  between  the  two  denominations.  Charles 
Kennon  of  North  Carolina,  an  original  lay-E-eformer,  deceased, 
June,  1848.  Elijah  Philips,  of  Accomack  County,  Va.,  died 
July,  1848.  Eev.  Slingsby  Linthicum  of  Maryland,  original 
Reformer,  deceased  August,  1848. 

In  the  summer  of  1848,  an  agitation  over  church  government 
led  to  a  secession  from  one  of  the  large  Methodist  churches  of 
Philadelphia,  and  an  organization  on  a  congregational  plan,  sup- 
plemented by  a  secession  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  from  the  Centenary 
church,  by  the  summary  expulsion  of  the  pastor.  Dr.  Green,  who 
was  implicated  in  the  matter  of  Rev.  John  Newland  Maffit.  An 
Association  was  formed,  and  the  dissension  grew  into  four 
churches  in  Philadelphia  and  others  elsewhere.  Why  did  they 
not  seek  an  alliance  with  the  new  Church?  For  two  reasons,  per- 
haps :  first,  it  was  not  a  pure  lay-representation  movement  —  a 
large  personal  equation  was  in  it;  and,  second,  "Radicalism'' 
had  been  so  stigmatized  and  slandered  that  most  Methodists  of 
this  later  day  knew  of  it  only  by  "bad  report."  As  was  inevi- 
table, the  Association,  for  want  of  connectional  bonds,  was  short- 
lived, and  left  only  disasler  in  its  trail.  Daniel  Bagley,  volunteer 
missionary  to  Oregon,  organized  the  first  mission  church  in  the 
autumn  of  1848.  The  Illinois  Conference  repudiated  the  Pi^ot- 
estant  Monitor,  and  proposed  to  establish,  if  found  practicable, 
the  Western  Fountain  in  its  stead,  in  the  autumn  of  1848.  Ac- 
cordingly the  attempt  was  made,  and  the  paper  started  at  Green- 
ville, 111.,  with  Rev.  John  Waite  as  editor.  It  was  about  half 
the  size  of  the  official  paper,  and  at  half  the  price.  Rev.  Benedict 
Burgess  of  the  Virginia  Conference,  original  Reformer,  deceased 
November,  1848.  Also  Rev.  James  Hunter  of  North  Carolina, 
one  of  the  "expelled"  ministers  for  Reform,  January,  1849 j  Rev. 


358 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Kobert  Wilson  of  Maryland,  an  original  Reformer,  March,  1849; 
Eev.  George  Reed  of  Winchester,  Va.,  original  Reformer,  April, 
1849;  Rev,  James  Moore  of  the  North  Carolina  Conference, 
original  Reformer,  April,  1849.  Rev.  Gamaliel  Bailey,  aged 
eighty-four  years,  an  ex-itinerant  of  the  old  Church,  and  original 
Reformer,  and  father  of  Gamaliel  Bailey,  once  editor  of  the 
official  paper,  deceased  April,  1849.  Rev.  James  Jenkins  of 
Alabama,  original  Reformer,  deceased  June,  1849.  Rev.  Elijah 
Eliason  of  Maryland,  original  Reformer,  deceased  July,  1849. 
Thus  the  participants  in  the  movement  of  1828-30  were  passing 
away,  and  the  plan  of  this  History  calls  for  such  record  that  their 
names  at  least  may  be  rescued  from  oblivion.  Rev.  G.  Cumming 
Wild  was  appointed  missionary  to  California  by  the  Xew  York 
Conference;  he  reached  his  destination  with  the  migration  of 
gold-seekers  of  this  period,  and  began  operations,  but  his  un- 
timely death  ended  the  movement  to  introduce  the  cause  in  this 
Eldorado,  Rev.  Thomas  Stillwell,  original  Reformer,  of  the 
Indiana  Conference,  deceased  June,  1849.  Rev.  John  Philips, 
original  local  Reformer,  died  June,  1849.  Isaac  Conkling,  lay-Re- 
former of  Cincinnati,  deceased  July,  1849.  Rev.  Thomas  Maple, 
local  original  Reformer,  of  Pittsburgh  Conference,  deceased 
October,  1849.  Rev.  David  Ferris  of  Vermont  Conference, 
died  December,  1849.  Rev.  Jeremiah  Mason,  of  Maryland,  origi- 
nal Reformer,  deceased  November,  1849. 

Rev.  James  R.  Williams  departed  this  life  October  2,  1849. 
Born  in  Baltimore,  November  11,  1780,  a  dyer  by  trade,  which 
he  carried  on  successfully  until  his  death;  with  such  educational 
advantages  as  the  city  schools  furnished,  he  diligently  improved 
his  mind  until  he  acquired  a  creditable  knowledge  of  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Prench,  as  well  as  of  the  physical  sciences. 
In  1800,  in  his  twentieth  year,  he  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  was  soon  after  licensed  as  a  local  preacher, 
and  so  continued  until  September,  1827,  when,  with  ten  other 
preachers,  he  was  expelled  for  advocating  the  Mutual  Rights  of 
the  ministry  and  laity  in  that  Church.  He  was  a  contributor  to 
the  Western  Repository,  and  took  an  active  part  in  the  controversy 
for  Reform,  commanding  as  he  did  a  vigorous  English  style  and 
exhibiting  a  rare  judgment  in  counsel.  Leadership  in  the  move- 
ment for  Reform  came  to  him  unsought,  and  he  ever  proved  him- 
self worthy  of  the  trust  reposed  in  him.  He  was  a  member  of 
all  the  Conventions  and  General  Conferences,  and  his  name  is 
inseparably  connected  with  the  Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the 


OBITUARY  OF  JAMES  R.  WILLIAMS  359 


Church,  as  to  him,  largely,  must  be  ascribed  the  framework  of 
these  instruments.  A  Methodist  of  the  olden  type,  he  clung 
tenaciously  to  the  usages  and  methods,  and  departed  only  in  the 
fundamentals  of  governmental  reform.  He  was  one  of  the  earli- 
est of  the  unstationed  preachers  to  discover  that  the  claims  of 
this  class  could  not  be  successfully  pressed,  as  at  first  proposed; 
and  while  in  this  and  other  features  of  the  changes  suggested  his 
convictions  were  clear,  he  was  not  stubbornly  unyielding,  so  that 
in  the  close  contentions  his  answer  was,  "  Brethren,  if  you  will 
not  go  with  me,  then  I  will  go  with  you."  He  stood,  perhaps, 
fifth  among  the  voluminous  writers  for  the  cause  of  Reform,  both 
under  his  favorite  yiom  deplume,  ^'Amicus,"  and  his  proper  name, 
as  historian  and  author  of  several  valuable  treatises  on  religious 
subjects.  As  a  preacher  he  was  instructive,  but  not  popular  in 
the  sense  of  large  congregations;  and  as  a  Christian,  his  reputa- 
tion was  unblemished  and  commanded  the  respect  of  his  church 
opponents.  He  retained  the  full  possession  of  his  faculties 
during  his  protracted  death  sickness,  and,  on  being  interrogated 
by  his  close  friend,  J.  J.  Harrod,  he  answered  with  characteristic 
thoughtfulness :  "Yes,  all  is  well!  All  is  clear!  There  is  not  a 
cloud  in  my  sky !  I  have  power  over  sin.  I  am  saved  by  grace 
alone,  through  faith  in  my  crucified  Saviour.  My  faith  has  two 
fruits.  The  first  is  dominion  over  sin;  the  second,  peace  with 
God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  A  large  concourse  attended 
his  funeral  services  at  West  Baltimore  station,  and  his  mortal 
remains  repose  in  Greenmount  cemetery,  to  await  the  resurrection 
of  the  just. 

In  the  spring  of  1849,  the  trustees  of  Madison  College  at 
Uniontown,  Pa.,  tendered  to  the  Church  that  institution,  as  after 
the  connection  of  Bascom  and  Fielding  of  the  old  Church  had 
been  severed  it  was  abandoned  for  another  enterprise.  Founded 
and  partly  endowed  by  ex-President  Madison,  it  had  a  chequered 
history.  The  proposition  was  favorably  regarded;  and  a  large 
majority  of  the  Annual  Conferences  having  meanwhile  signified 
their  approval,  it  was  formally  accepted  by  the  ensuing  General 
Conference  of  May,  1850,  in  Baltimore.^    The  connection  with  it 

1  As  early  as  January,  1848,  in  the  Western  Recorder,  Rev.  William  Hamil- 
ton, one  of  the  ablest  of  our  Western  ministers,  submitted  a  proposition  for  the 
organization  of  a  new  college  in  the  West.  The  Zanesville  circuit  took  up  the 
subject  favorably  soon  after,  and  the  citizens  of  Brownsville,  O.,  made  a  move 
for  the  proposed  institution  in  their  midst.  Hamilton  continued  to  write,  and  pro- 
posed a  plan  in  1849.  J.  H.  Deford  and  others  took  part  in  it,  bringing  forward 
the  offer  of  Madison  College  and  its  acceptance  as  here  detailed. 


360  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


proved  disastrous,  and  its  brief  career  under  such  auspices  may 
be  here  succinctly  narrated.  The  Board  of  Trustees  selected  and 
secured  the  acceptance  of  the  Presidency  by  Kev.  E.  H.  Ball, 
A.M.,  a  successful  educator  and  well-furnished  man,  but,  in  the 
judgment  of  Dr.  George  Brown,  whose  opinion  is  weighty  as 
more  intimately  associated  with  its  whole  course  than  any  other, 
a  primary  mistake  was  made  in  the  effort  to  open  it  as  a  full- 
fledged  college  instead  of  an  academy  or  high  school.  The  Pitts- 
burgh Conference  of  September,  1850,  w^as  held  in  Uniontown, 
and  the  college  came  largely  under  its  immediate  care  as  to  trus- 
teeship, etc.,  while  the  Faculty  was  drawn,  — except  the  notable 
instance  of  Rev.  Dr.  G.  B.  McElroy,  so  distinguished  for  his  life- 
long adhesion  to  the  Church  of  his  choice  under  embarrassments 
of  a  most  discouraging  nature,  and  who  remains  in  the  front  of 
the  Western  educational  work  to  this  day,  loved  and  honored  of 
all,  —  from  the  South :  Maryland  and  Virginia.  Eev.  P.  T. 
Laishley  was  selected  as  college  agent,  and  did  yeoman  service 
for  the  institution.  But  it  is  evident  that  an  error  back  of  too 
pretentious  a  start,  was  the  acceptance  of  the  college  at  all  after 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  had  found  it  expedient  to  aban- 
don it  for  obvious  reasons.  Early  and  commendable  zeal  for 
education  in  the  new  Church,  and  the  disaster  by  fire  at  Law- 
renceburgh,  Ind.,  led  to  the  favorable  consideration  of  almost  any 
opening  for  a  new  venture. 

It  would  not  be  to  edification  or  instruction  to  detail  the  per- 
sonal difficulties  between  the  President,  E,.  H.  Ball,  the  students, 
faculty,  and  trustees,  which  led  to  his  resignation,  broken  in 
health  by  the  harassments  to  which  he  was  subjected.  Appeal 
was  then  made  to  Dr.  Francis  Waters  to  accept  the  position, 
which  he  did  as  there  had  been  a  fair  attendance  of  students  and 
the  outlook  was  not  altogether  without  promise  j  but,  after  a  brief 
residence  with  his  family,  Dr.  Waters  resigned,  assigning  no 
reason  at  the  time,  but  it  was  afterward  ascertained  that  the  cli- 
mate was  uncongenial  to  the  delicate  health  of  his  wife.  Dr. 
Brown  was  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  and,  for  a  time. 
President  of  the  college  and  professor  in  the  faculty.  Dr.  Waters 
recommended,  as  a  successor.  Rev.  S.  K.  Cox  of  Maryland, 
who  accepted,  and,  in  the  autumn  of  1854,  removed  to  Union- 
town.  A  pupil  of  Dr.  Waters,  well  educated  and  gifted,  but  of 
highly  sanguine  temperament  and  a  lofty  ideal  without  practical 
business  endowment,  he  faced  the  situation  boldly;  introduced 
the  military  drill  for  the  students,  and  extravagantly  involved 


HISTORY  OF  MADISON  COLLEGE 


861 


himself  and  the  institution.  In  March,  1853,  the  trustees  had 
contracted  debt  to  remodel  the  college  building,  adding  another 
presage  of  ultimate  disaster;  but  the  college  was  kept  running, 
and  graduates  were  sent  out,  some  of  whom  have  since  made  a 
mark  in  the  world  j  and  so  matters  continued  until  the  spring  of 
1855,  when  a  case  of  college  insubordination  among  two  of  the 
students  occurred,  which  set  President,  faculty,  and  trustees  by 
the  ears,  with  crimination  and  recrimination.  Dr.  Brown,  in  his 
"Itinerant  Life,"  details  the  matter  with  microscopic  particu- 
larity. Mr.  McElroy,  under  pressure  from  the  President  and 
faculty.  Dr.  Brown  avers,  because  the  only  member  not  from  the 
South,  was  called  upon  to  resign;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
was  put  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not  a  college  graduate  at  the 
time  and  so  did  not  measure  up  to  his  colleagues.  The  military 
system  was  in  full  glory,  drills,  muskets,  and  the  college  an 
armory,  and  in  violation,  it  is  said,  of  the  charter.  In  fine,  the 
Southern  question  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  differences ;  and  the 
ferment  went  on,  with  rumors  and  denials,  the  choice  tidbit  being 
that  colored  students  would  be  pressed  for  admission,  and  that 
endowment  had  been  promised  by  Charles  Avery  to  this  effect. 
Denial  did  not  arrest  the  rumor,  and  the  finality  was,  at  the  Com- 
mencement of  1855  the  President  announced  that  the  faculty  had 
resigned,  and  that  a  college  would  be  opened  at  Lynchburg,  Va., 
in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year.  It  transpired  that  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  to  this  effect.  Dr.  Collier  was  now  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board,  and  steps  were  at  once  taken  to  reorganize  the 
faculty,  with  Dr.  Brown  as  President,  the  recall  of  Mr.  McElroy, 
and  the  election  of  Bancroft  and  Hutton  as  coadjutors,  all  from 
the  free  States. 

The  college  was  reopened  in  September ;  but  eighty-five  of  the 
ninety  Southern  students  did  not  return,  and  the  whole  situation 
was  most  discouraging.  At  this  juncture  Charles  Avery  came 
to  its  relief  with  a  donation  of  $1500.  Mrs.  T.  A.  Eeese  of 
Maryland  had  conditionally  given  $2000,  which  finally  reverted 
to  the  Book  Concern  at  Baltimore.  Uniontown  did  but  little  for 
the  college,  owing  to  partisan  influences  and  the  decadence  of  the 
place.  The  narration  of  the  personal  sacrifices  made  by  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  faculty  to  run  the  institution  is  a  story  of  martyr- 
devotion  to  ideas  and  principles  as  they  understood  them.  The 
following  year  a  successful  Commencement  was  held,  with 
McElroy  as  the  only  graduate,  however.  The  herculean  efforts 
of  the  President  to  relieve  the  financial  situation  make  a  page 


362 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


unequalled  in  the  Church  history,  as  he  and  others  travelled  not 
Xorth  only,  but  South,  in  Maryland  and  Virginia;  and  he  can- 
didly admits  that  he  met  with  success  in  securing  the  payment  of 
old  obligations,  and,  on  visiting  Lynchburg,  where  the  new  col- 
lege had  been  inaugurated,  he  relates  his  hospitable  reception  by 
old  students  and  the  founders  of  the  new  regime.  He  met  with 
but  meagre  success  in  the  Xorth  and  West,  and  the  upshot  was, 
that  by  the  ensuing  September  Dr.  Brown  announced  his  failure 
to  make  possible  the  further  continuance  of  the  college;  and  it 
was  closed,  involving  much  pecuniary  loss,  more  in  prestige, 
with  an  aggravation  of  the  internal  slavery  dissensions  in  the 
new  Church. 

Eeturning  to  the  autumn  of  1849,  the  Michigan  Conference 
declined  to  elect  representatives  to  the  General  Conference  to 
meet  in  Baltimore  the  ensuing  May,  1850,  thus  ridding  them- 
selves of  complicity  with  slavery,  as  they  interpreted  it.  It  was 
probably  this,  or  disintegration,  so  extreme  had  the  situation 
become  in  the  ^STorthwest.  The  Muskingum  Conference  at  its 
September  session,  1849,  took  steps  to  inaugurate  a  college  in 
Cambridge,  0. ;  buildings  were  erected,  and  considerable  money 
spent  upon  the  enterprise,  but  a  storm  demolished  the  erections, 
and  a  collapse  was  threatened,  when,  principally  through  the 
efforts  of  Kev.  George  Clancy,  they  were  rebuilt;  but  again, 
before  completion,  a  fire  destroyed  the  whole,  and  the  enterprise 
was  abandoned. 

The  new  Church  was  now  called  to  mourn  the  loss  of  Eev.  W. 
W.  Hill,  the  "Luther"  of  the  Keform  controversy.  William 
Wallace  Hill  was  born  in  1788,  in  Halifax  County,  N.  C,  re- 
ceived a  liberal  education,  was  converted,  united  with  the  old 
Church,  entered  the  Conference,  embraced  Keform  principles, 
and,  in  August,  1825,  was  tried  for  "  sowing  dissensions  "  in  the 
Church,  but  was  triumphantly  acquitted  owing  to  his  masterful 
defence.  With  others  he  organized  the  North  Carolina  Confer- 
ence, December  19,  1828,  and  was  elected  President,  and  trav- 
elled extensively  as  a  missionary  propagandist  throughout  the 
State.  He  was  a  member  of  all  the  Conventions  and  early  Gen- 
eral Conferences,  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  periodical  press, 
and  a  leader  in  the  best  sense.  Colhouer  says :  "  Mentally,  he 
was  profound  in  thought,  clear  in  comprehension,  positive  in 
conviction,  and  fearless  in  expression.  Physically,  he  was  a 
grand  specimen  of  the  human  family.  Tall  in  stature,  symmet- 
rical in  proportion,  intelligent  in  countenance,  classic  in  feature, 


SKETCH  OF  REV,  W.  W.  HILL 


363 


with  a  melodious  voice,  and  an  emotional  spirit,  he  presented  a 
majestic  appearance  before  his  audiences,  and  would  move  them 
with  the  power  of  his  eloquence,  as  the  trees  of  the  forest  are 
swayed  by  the  mighty  wind/'  In  1835  he  removed  to  Alabama, 
where  he  took  up  the  work  of  the  Church  as  a  leader  in  organiza- 
tion, and  was  elected  President  in  1846,  and  a  representative  to 
the  General  Conference  of  that  year.  He  was  unremitting  in 
labors  to  the  close,  which  came  to  him  peacefully,  September  7, 
1849,  in  the  sixty-first  year  of  his  age.  "He  lived  beloved;  he 
died  lamented ! " 

Colonel  R.  Blount  of  North  Carolina  departed  April,  1850. 
He  was  an  early  Reformer  and  one  of  the  stanchest  of  its  lay- 
advocates.  American  Methodist  Reformers  received  much  en- 
couragement from  the  extensive  Reform  movements  in  England 
and  the  establishment  of  their  organ,  the  Wesleyan  Times,  of 
which  note  was  made  in  the  first  volume  of  this  work.  Rev. 
James  Coval  of  the  New  York  Conference  deceased  March,  1850. 
As  the  General  Conference  approached  and  the  several  Annual 
Conferences  elected  their  representatives,  much  anxiety  was  felt 
as  to  the  issue  of  the  slavery  question,  which  impended  as  a  dis- 
cussion in  it.  In  April  the  Western  Recorder  contained  an  address 
to  the  body  by  anticipation,  on  slavery  and  other  matters,  by 
W.  M.  Reeves,  and  there  were  other  indications  of  a  renewal  of 
former  contentions.  This  quadrennium  may  be  closed  with  the 
record  in  the  Western  paper  of  the  decease  of  Thaddeus  Hanford, 
a  prominent  lay-Reformer,  May,  1850. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


The  Fifth  General  Conference,  of  1850 ;  roster  of  members ;  large  absenteeism ; 
reasons  for  it  —  Tlie  slavery  question  in  abeyance  largely  —  Madison  College 
accepted  —  Charleston,  S.  C,  and  Steubenville,  O.,  in  nomination  for  the  next 
Conference  and  the  latter  carried  by  a  vote  of  twenty-four  to  twenty-three  — 
Statistics  show  a  small  gain  for  the  quadrennium ;  significance  of  it ;  a  like 
arrest  of  development  in  the  old  Church — Report  of  the  Book  Concern  the 
most  favorable  ever  made;  E.  Yeates  Reese  unanimously  reelected  editor  — 
Two  other  measures ;  right  of  appeal  to  the  General  Conference,  and  option  of 
Annual  Conferences  to  have  a  travelling  President  or  not ;  the  last  indorsed  by 
the  Annual  Conferences;  reflections  on  the  first  —  The  Constitution  of  the  new 
Church  after  twenty  years'  trial  a  success ;  tentative  efforts  in  both  the  Church 
North  and  South  to  introduce  the  principle  of  lay-delegation  —  Moralizing 
upon  the  cultivation  of  individualism  in  the  new  Church  in  opposition  to 
automatism  in  the  old  Church. 

The  fifth  General  Conference  assembled  at  West  Baltimore 
station  in  Baltimore,  Md.,  on  the  7th  of  May,  1850.  George 
Brown  was  called  to  the  Chair,  and  A.  H.  Bassett  appointed 
Secretary.  The  following  is  the  certified  list  of  the  members  as 
made  from  both  the  manuscript  and  printed  Minutes. 


Maine 


Ministers 
N.  S.  Davis  i 


Laymen 
A.  Ransdelli 


Boston 


Thomas  F.  Norris 


Wm,  Wyman 


Vermont 


Z.  Boyntoni 


M.  Smith  1 


New  York 


J.  J.  Smith 


Thomas  Brown 


Onondaga 


J.  H.  Richards  1 


G.  White  1 


Genesee 


Isaac  Fister 


E.  Foster  1 


1  Absent. 
864 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1850 


New  Jersey 


Ministers 
Samuel  Budd 


J.  G.  Wilson 


A.  Abbott  1 


George  Brown 
John  Cowl 
J.  Robison 
Samuel  Clawson 


Z.  Ragan 
Geo.  Clancy  1 
John  Burns 
C.  Springer 


A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  M.  Young  1 
Joseph  J.  White  i 


Samuel  Morrison 
Joseph  Shipp  i 
Reddick  Horn 


Laymen 
James  Clark 


Philadelphia 


John  Porter 


Pennsylvania 


Pittsburgh 


Muskingum 


Ohio 


J.  Van  Camp 


J.  W.  Phillips 
J.  H.  Deford 
Wm.  Miller 
Dr.  Z.  Kidwelli 


A.  W.  Beatty  i 

B.  S.  Cone 
T.  Hannai 
F.  Scott 


D.  C.  Carson 
J.  M'Cabei 
J.  Foster,  Sr. 


Michigan 
Declined  to  send  delegates 


Indiana 


Wabash 


Illinois 


L.  Barton  1 


N.  T.  Catterlini 


Joel  Rice 


North  Illinois 


Daniel  Bagley  S.  Loy  i 

Iowa 

No  delegates  sent  or  announced 


Wm.  Collier 
Josiah  Varden 
L.  R.  Reese 
W.  C.  Lipscomb 


Maryland 


1  Absent. 


Wesley  Starr 
J.  M.  Fooks 
P.  B.  Hopper 
Alexander  Norris 


366  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Virginia 


Ministers 
R.  B.  Thomson 
J.  G.  Whitfield 


John  Paris 
W.  H.  Wills 


James  Newberry 
B.  F.  Duggan 
M'Kendree  Tucker 
Dr.  M.  Nashi 


S.  Johnston 

W.  Rice  1 

B.  S.  Anderson 


H.  K.  Beaver  i 
Elisha  Lott 
B.  T.  Nowlini 
John  Miller  i 
Peyton  S.  Graves 
Azariah  Bone  i 


Laymen 
J.  J.  Burroughs 
H.  F.  Woodhouse 


North  Carolina 


Dr.  B.  F.  Folger 
Dr.  L.  W.  Batchelor 


SocTH  Carolina 


Tennessee 


Georgia 


Florida 


Alabama 


Huntsville 


Mississippi 


Missouri 


Arkansas 


Louisiana 


Texas 


H.  D.  W.  Alexander! 


R.  Warner! 


John  Bass 


R.  Whitakeri 


B.  S.  Bibb  1 
Boiling  Hall 
Edmund  Harrison 


S.  Goodneri 


Peter  Loper 


C.  Edmundsoni 


John  Gott  1 


S.  P.  M'Gee 


David  Lane  i 


There  were  eighty-eight  in  all,  of  whom  but  thirty-five  were 
present  on  the  first  day,  and  thirty-three  were  not  present  at 
all,  a  majority  of  them  from  the  extreme  North  and  South,  in- 
dicating that  distance,  expense,  and  hardsliip  of  travel  were  the 
causes,  there  being  as  yet  no  continuous  lines  of  railroads,  except 


1  Absent. 


GENEBAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1850  867 


the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  which  had  just  surmounted  the  almost 
insuperable  physical  barriers  to  the  West  by  piercing  and  scaling 
the  mountains,  and  over  which  the  members  of  Conference  west- 
ward bound  were  invited  to  accept  free  return  passage  through 
Wesley  Starr,  who  was  largely  interested  in  it.  Thirty-two 
Conferences  are  recognized.  On  the  second  day  Levi  R.  Reese 
was  elected  President  on  the  fifth  ballot,  A.  H.  Bassett  and 
B.  H.  Anderson,  Secretaries  on  first  ballot. 

The  President  announced  as  Chairmen  of  the  following  commit- 
tees: Journals,  John  Burns;  Boundaries,  T.  F.  Norris;  Judiciary, 
George  Brown;  Executive,  C.  Springer;  Literary,  Z.  Ragan; 
Means  of  Grace,  J.  G.  Whitfield;  Finance,  Boiling  Hall;  Orders, 
P.  S.  Graves;  Sabbath-schools,  D.  C.  Carson.  The  minutes  cover 
fifty  printed  pages,  and  are  made  up  of  slight  changes  in  the  Dis- 
cipline ;  the  two  salient  questions  before  the  body  being  the  status 
of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  and  the  acceptance  of  Madison 
College;  the  slavery  question,  when  introduced,  being  speedily 
disposed  of  in  accordance  with  decisions  of  previous  Conferences. 
A  running  synopsis  will  be  given  of  the  more  important  items. 
A  recommendation  for  the  purchase  of  the  Western  Recorder  by 
its  editor  and  proprietor,  A.  H.  Bassett,  was  declined.  A  recom- 
mendation to  discontinue  the  order  of  Deacon  was  favorably  re- 
ported, but  referred  to  the  concurrence  of  two-thirds  of  the 
Annual  Conferences.  A  memorial  from  Charleston  station,  S.  C, 
asking  to  be  annexed  to  the  Maryland  Conference  was  condition- 
ally approved.  An  Oregon  and  California  Conference  was  set  off. 
A  republication  of  McCaine's  "Defence  of  the  Truth  "  was  recom- 
mended to  the  Book  Committee,  and  afterward  carried  out  by 
them.  John  Cowl  presented  a  memorial  from  Manchester  circuit, 
Pittsburgh  Conference,  asking  that  "a  more  definite  expression 
be  given  upon  the  sinfulness  of  slavery  .  .  .  and  that  the  extent 
of  the  power  of  the  Annual  Conference  to  legislate  on  the  sub- 
ject be  defined."  Ragan  moved  that  it  be  referred  to  Committee 
on  Executive,  and  the  Secretary  says,  "  After  a  friendly  and  fra- 
ternal interchange  of  sentiments  by  numerous  brethren  from  both 
North  and  South,  the  motion  to  refer  prevailed."  Dr.  J.  G. 
Morris  of  the  Lutheran  Church  offered,  unofficially,  to  the  Church 
the  advantages  of  Gettysburg  College  and  Seminary,  with  special 
privilege  —  in  lieu  of  the  acceptance  of  Madison  College,  the 
difficulties  and  expense  of  its  rehabilitation  being  pointed  out  in 
a  friendly  and  foreseeing  manner  in  his  letter.  An  investigation 
of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  was  ordered  through  a  committee 


368  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  five:  Hopper,  Brown,  Deford,  Paris,  and  Burroughs.  A  reso- 
lution from  the  New  York  Conference  asking  that  the  word 
"  white  "  be  stricken  from  the  Constitution  was  referred  to  Com- 
mittee on  Executive.  It  was  the  only  other  action  on  slavery 
and  its  incident  referred  to  this  Conference.  C.  Springer,  Chair- 
man of  the  Executive  Committee,  reported  on  the  Manchester 
resolution  and  that  from  Xew  York  anent  the  slavery  matters  as 
follows :  "  That  they  are  of  opinion  this  General  Conference  has 
no  jurisdiction  over  the  subjects  referred  to  in  these  papers.  In 
reference  to  the  request  of  the  Manchester  brethren  asking  this 
body  to  define  the  powers  of  the  Annual  Conferences  to  'legislate 
on  the  subject  of  slavery, '  they  do  not  think  that  the  General 
Conference  should  assume  the  right  to  expound  the  Discipline  to 
the  Annual  Conferences ;  but  that  each  Annual  Conference  is  the 
judge  of  such  matters  as  are  referred  to  it  by  the  Constitution, 
respectively  for  themselves,  and  are  only  held  responsible  to  the 
General  Conference,  when,  in  their  judgment,  they  shall  have 
passed  'rules  and  regulations'  contravening  the  Constitution." 
The  simple  record  of  the  Secretary  on  this  report  is,  "The  above 
report  was,  on  motion,  adopted."  A  pacific  spirit  obtained,  and 
the  brethren,  Xorth  and  West,  without  the  slightest  change  in 
their  views  as  to  the  sinfulness  of  slavery,  had  agreed,  in  their 
love  for  the  Church,  that  this  disposition  should  be  made  of  it 
as  an  ecclesiastical  question.  But  the  winds  of  a  manifest  destiny 
could  not  be  long  locked  in  their  caves,  —  it  will  be  seen  how 
they  presently  burst  forth,  and  a  great  and  condign  moral  retribu- 
tion swept  over  not  the  South  only,  but  the  Xorth;  and  a  moral 
wrong,  entailed  alike  by  the  fathers  in  both  sections,  was  righted 
in  a  baptism  of  blood. 

Madison  College  was  accepted,  and  commissioners  appointed  to 
adjust  the  conditions.  Its  history  has  been  given.  A  paper  asking 
the  Conference  to  define  the  rights  of  females  as  voters  reported 
"that  they  only  possess  the  right  of  voting  in  the  election  of  class 
leaders,  in  the  appointment  of  committees  of  trial  of  accused  mem- 
bers, in  cases  where  trials  are  had  before  classes,  and  the  recep- 
tion of  members  into  the  Church."  It  was  adopted.  Steubenville, 
0.,  and  Charleston,  S.  C,  were  nominated  for  the  next  place  of 
meeting  of  the  General  Conference,  and  the  former  selected  by  a 
vote  of  twenty-four  to  twenty-three.  The  Philadel^jhia  Confer- 
ence, it  was  declared,  had  acted  unconstitutionally  in  allowing  the 
charges  to  elect  whether  they  would  be  stations  or  missions,  and 
ordered  that  the  district  be  annexed  to  the  Maryland  Conference. 


ABREST  OF  DEVELOPMENT — WUEllEFOllE?  369 


The  disastrous  results  of  this  action  have  been  elsewhere  detailed. 
They  were  honest  and  able  men,  such  as  Williams,  Hopper,  Levi 
E.  Keese,  Starr,  Brown,  Varden,  and  others,  who  believed  that 
a  menace  to  the  Restrictive  Rule  was  a  menace  to  Methodism; 
but  the  light  of  events  has  shown  the  gravity  of  the  error,  and 
however  precipitate  the  methods  and  indiscreet  the  resolves,  the 
more  far-seeing  wisdom  rested  with  J.  S.  Reese,  Webster,  tho 
Stocktons,  father  and  son,  as  they  were  taught  by  the  prescient 
Snethen.  The  Committee  on  Statistics  submitted  a  report  from 
the  thirty-two  Conferences,  and  the  summation  is :  stations,  63 ; 
circuits,  351;  missions,  104;  itinerant  ministers  and  preachers, 
778;  unstationed  ministers  and  preachers,  697;  members,  65,694; 
houses  of  worship,  803;  parsonages,  57;  value  of  church  property, 
$708,415.  A  comparison  with  four  years  previous  does  not  make, 
seemingly,  a  favorable  exhibit,  and  it  is  full  of  instruction.  The 
Maryland  Conference  had  lost  in  the  quadrennium  nearly  three 
thousand  members.  Wherefore?  There  is  no  answer  but  the 
acrimonious  and  alienating  "mission"  controversy,  already  re- 
ferred to,  which  prevailed  through  this  period.  There  was  a  loss 
of  about  a  thousand  in  the  Muskingum  Conference  for  the  same 
time,  and  also  in  the  Indiana  and  Wabash  combined  of  about  a 
thousand,  due,  it  must  be  assumed,  to  the  "Abolition"  contro- 
versy; and  for  the  same  reason  there  are  losses  in  most  of  the 
Northwestern  Conferences.  Yet  there  is  a  slight  aggregate  gain, 
due  to  the  active  evangelistic  efforts  in  a  number  of  the  Southern 
Conferences,  the  statistics  for  1850  reporting  a  separate  column 
for  "missions"  to  the  number  of  104,  which  were  so  in  the  ac- 
cepted sense  of  the  word,  as  there  is  no  decrease  of  stations  and 
circuits.  There  is  also  an  increase  of  two  hundred  houses  of 
worship,  with  an  advance  in  property  valuation  of  $150,000. 
So  it  will  be  seen  that,  discriminately  considered,  the  Church 
had  done  well  to  hold  its  own  with  growth  in  material  of  about 
twenty-five  per  cent.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  expe- 
rienced a  similar  arrest  of  development,  not  fully  accounted  for 
by  the  Southern  separation.  The  reunion  of  the  Wabash  with 
the  Indiana  Conference  was  recommended  and  consummated. 

The  report  of  the  Book  Concern  and  Periodical  was  an  exhaus- 
tive one,  and  must  be  noted  in  its  recapitulations  and  special 
features.  Assets,  $16,402.94,  but  these  were  largely  in  stereo- 
type plates,  subscriptions  due,  and  book  stock  which,  though 
discounted,  were  found  unrealizable  to  a  much  larger  extent. 
Liabilities,  $6610.67,  by  far  the  best  showing  that  had  ever  been 

VOL.  II  —  2b 


370 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


made,  and  the  editor  and  agent,  E.  Yeates  Reese,  was  com- 
plimented by  increasing  the  salary  from  ^900  to  61100  a  year. 
Wesley  Starr  had  been  generous,  and  Mrs.  T.  A.  Reese  made 
two  donations  of  $1500  and  ^500,  with  life  annuity  in  books,  etc., 
attached.  The  favorable  outlook  for  the  Concern  was  due  largely 
to  the  sale  in  the  quadrennium  of  ten  thousand  copies  of  the 
hymn  book,  and  an  increase  of  the  periodical  from  2337  to  3187. 
The  Book  Committee  says,  significantly,  in  the  light  of  future 
events,  "  The  profits  on  the  Book  Business  are  inconsiderable  — 
probably  little  more  than  will  pay  its  proportion  of  the  general 
expenses  of  the  Concern."  The  principal  supporting  Conferences 
of  the  periodical  were:  Arkansas,  101;  Illinois,  123;  Alabama, 
309;  Georgia,  162;  Tennessee,  103;  North  Carolina,  219;  New 
York,  217;  Pennsylvania,  229;  Virginia,  403;  Maryland,  614. 
E.  Yeates  Reese  was  unanimously  reelected  editor  and  agent, 
and  the  same  Book  Committee  was  reelected,  except  Dr.  Francis 
Waters,  Chairman,  in  lieu  of  James  R.  Williams,  deceased,  Wes- 
ley Starr,  Joseph  Brown,  John  Coates,  J.  W.  Richardson,  and 
Robert  B.  Varden,  with  the  ex-ofiicio  addition  of  the  ministers  of 
West  and  East  Baltimore  stations.  The  Board  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions was  changed  from  Baltimore  to  Pittsburgh  with  the  follow- 
ing members:  William  Collier,  Charles  Avery,  George  Brown, 
and  the  ministers  of  Pittsburgh  and  Alleghany  stations,  minis- 
terial; and  J.  L.  Sands,  William  Troth,  J.  Macaskey,  William 
Miller,  J.  W.  Phillips,  T.  Hanna,  and  :\r.  M.  Laughlin,  laical. 

Two  other  actions  were  had  looking  to  emendation  of  the  Con- 
stitution, the  one  investing  the  General  Conference  with  "  author- 
ity to  hear  and  decide  on  appeals,"  which  meant  further  protection 
of  personal  rights  in  accord  with  the  fundamentals  of  the  Church ; 
and  the  other  to  provide  amendment  "  by  which  presidents  of  the 
Annual  Conferences  may  be  stationed,  if  these  bodies  see  proper 
to  do  so."  This  call  for  relief  to  the  diocesan  episcopacy  of  the 
Church  grew  out  of  the  fact,  not  fully  considered  by  the  framers, 
that  in  not  a  few  cases  the  poverty  and  paucity  of  numbers  in  an 
Annual  Conference  made  it  practically  impossible  for  the  Presi- 
dent to  travel  and  secure  a  support.  The  last  measure  received 
a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  Annual  Conferences,  and  so  prevailed.^ 

This  and  other  minor  emendations  to  the  Constitutional  instru- 

1  The  first  proposition  to  grant  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  General  Conference 
came  from  the  Judiciary  Committee  and  after  discussion  a  vote  hy  order  was 
called,  and  it  was  passed  by  twenty-four  to  twelve,  just  a  two-thirds  majority; 
and  yet  this  measure  on  submission  to  the  Annual  Conferences  was  rejected,  a 


REFLEX  INFLUENCE  OF  NEW  CHURCU  371 


ment  were  in  evidence  that,  as  a  whole,  the  framers  had  buihled 
even  wiser  than  they  knew.  Twenty  years  had  now  elapsed  since 
its  formulation,  a  reasonable  time  in  which  to  test  its  provisions; 
and  it  had  disappointed  all  the  dire  forebodings  of  its  enemies. 
It  was  pronounced  a  "rope  of  sand,"  and  such  prophets  of  evil  as 
Dr.  Bond  gave  the  new  Church  three  years  as  a  limit  in  which  to 
disintegrate  and  perish.  To  the  contrary,  it  was  found  that  with 
the  utmost  flexibility  it  was  yet  sufficiently  cohesive,  and  though 
"built  upon  the  principle  of  a  brake,"  as  Bishop  M'Tyeire  felici- 
tously phrased  it,  as  a  working  hypothesis  it  was  found  to  run 
smoothly,  and  yielded  unexpected  satisfaction  to  its  framers  and 
friends.  The  Methodist  Protestant  Church  stood  forth  as  a 
demonstration  that  a  lay-representative  form  of  government,  so 
far  from  being  a  hinderance  to  Methodism,  was  an  unprecedented 
success,  and  began  to  extort  the  reluctant  admiration  of  its  criti- 
cal foes.  In  evidence,  in  the  General  Conference  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  South,  in  1848,  Kev.  Dr.  W.  A.  Smith 
introduced  a  plan  for  a  lay-delegation;  and  though  it  had  some 
peculiar  features  that  differenced  it  from  lay-representation  in 
the  new  Church,  it,  nevertheless,  was  a  confession  of  the  right- 
fulness of  the  principle.  Dr.  Smith  probably  acquired  his  ideas 
from  the  Shiloh  controversy  with  Rev.  J.  G.  Whitfield,  already 
noticed;  for  it  was  easy  enough  for  the  most  uncompromising  of 
exclusive-rule  preachers  to  modify  his  views  when  once  contact 
with  liberal  men  had  chance  to  break  the  hard  crust  of  ecclesias- 
tical prejudice.  And  in  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1852,  a  similar  movement  for 
lay-delegation  occupied  its  attention,  as  shall  be  exhibited.  The 
simple  truth  is,  that  lay-representation  was  an  undying  principle 
in  Methodism,  and  was  again  sapping  at  the  old  foundations. 
But  in  neither  of  these  cases  was  there  any  admission  of  the 
modifying  effects  of  the  new  Church  success ;  —  it  was  no  such 
naughty  "  radical "  thing  they  proposed,  it  was  a  new  discovery, 
and  it  was  brought  forward  on  its  unique  merits ! 

It  had  been  a  crucial  period ;  it  was  a  test  between  centralized 
authority  and  individual  spontaneity.  This  differentiation  has 
never  been  better  phrased  than  by  a  recent  writer :  "  The  polity 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  is  peculiar  in  this,  that  the 
success  or  failure  of  our  work  depends  largely  on  the  individu- 

singular  and  instructive  illustration  of  a  reversal  of  judgment  by  the  sober 
second  thought  of  the  body  of  ministers  and  laymen  in  the  Annual  Conferences. 
See  General  Conference  Minutes,  p.  44. 


372 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


ality  of  her  pastors.  They  are  not  so  many  automatic  machines 
controlled  by  a  grand  central  power,  but  each  an  individual  en- 
tity, supposed  to  be  competent  to  stamp  upon  his  parishioners  a 
consciousness  of  his  own  individuality  to  the  upbuilding  of  the 
Church.  Methodist  Protestantism  will  suffer  the  loss  of  many, 
otherwise  excellent  men,  who  can  not  use  their  individuality  to 
advantage.  Made  a  part  of  a  great  machine,  such  as  episcopacy 
is,  they  fill  a  place,  draw  a  support,  and  become  so  many  autom- 
ata, acted  upon  from  without,  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  a 
pressure  which,  sooner  or  later,  effaces  their  individuality  and 
makes  them  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole,  intercogged  with 
other  portions  of  the  machinery,  and  receiving  power  from  that 
grand  motor  known  as  ecclesiastical  authority."^  It  is  an  exact 
philosophy  of  the  Eoman  hierarchy  and  of  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal polity  as  well.  And  as  a  prophecy  in  part,  for  over  sixty 
years  the  observant  have  marked  its  fulfilment.  The  new 
Church  has  and  must  continue  to  lose,  such  men  as  cannot  use 
their  individuality  —  they  have  no  place  in  manhood  suffrage  and 
individual  responsibility.  It  need  not  be  said,  however,  that  this 
ideal  is  levelling  and  descending  in  its  trend;  to  the  contrary, 
the  ideal  of  Christian  manhood  taught  in  the  New  Testament 
gathers  about  it  all  of  that  type,  and  utilizes  many  others  by 
its  upward  educating  process.  There  is  no  other  way  to  ac- 
count for  the  accumulation  in  the  itinerant  ministry  of  the  new 
Church  of  over  fifteen  hundred  men  contributing  everything,  not 
to  further  their  own  selfish  advantage,  but  to  cultivate  and  per- 
petuate the  ideal  of  equal  brotherhood  in  a  Methodist  Church. 
It  is  a  spectacle  for  the  admiration  of  thinking  men,  and  receives 
it  from  all  denominations  having  the  same  ideal. 


1  Rev.  A.  H.  Widney  in  Methodist  Recorder,  December  1,  1894. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


Bascom  elected  Bishop  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  South;  his  decease —Obituaries  of 
Reformers  —  Missions  to  Oregon  and  China  —  Reform  agitations  in  England 
and  in  the  M.  E.  Church  renewed  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers —  McGehee  College 
in  Alabama;  history  of  it  —  Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  Sr.,  recalled  as  editor  of  the 
New  York  Christian  Advocate;  the  purpose  of  it  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers; 
Harrod,  Chappell,  and  others  — The  North  Illinois  Conference  on  Slavery; 
renewal  of  the  controversy  —  The  Platte  Annual  Conference  organized;  local 
conference  papers  — South  Illinois  Conference  organized  —  Sketch  of  Asa 
Shinn  and  his  decease. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  met  in  St.  Louis,  May,  1850,  and  Eev.  Dr.  W.  A.  Smith, 
probably  enlightened  by  his  controversy  with  Rev.  J.  G.  Whit- 
field, at  Shiloh,  heretofore  noticed,  introduced  a  plan  for  a  lay- 
delegation.  It  was  unique  in  its  features  and  ardently  pressed 
by  him,  but  the  body  was  not  yet  ripe  for  the  innovation.  A 
step  in  advance,  however,  was  taken :  the  Joint  Board  of  Finance 
made  provision  for  an  equal  number  of  ministers  and  laymen  — 
one  from  every  Elder's  district  —  to  take  charge  of  the  money 
matters  of  each  Annual  Conference,  etc.  It  was  at  this  Confer- 
ence that  Bascom  was  elected  Bishop,  on  the  second  ballot,  by  a 
vote  of  fifty-nine  out  of  one  hundred.  He  died  the  ensuing  Sep- 
tember 8,  leaving  the  testimony,  "All  my  trust  and  confidence 
is  in  Almighty  God  as  revealed  in  the  cross  of  Christ."  This 
year  noted  the  decease  of  the  following  early  Reformers :  Rev. 
James  Covel,  M.D.,  June  8;  Rev.  Samuel  S.  Prather,  June  22; 
Rev.  Joel  Whitley,  August  3;  Rev.  G.  Cummings  Wild  of  New 
York,  missionary  to  California,  of  typhoid  fever,  at  Sacramento, 
August  9;  Rev.  James  Williams  of  North  Carolina,  November  30. 
The  dates  are  of  obituary  publications  in  the  Baltimore  paper. 
Also  of  William  Disney,  of  the  Cincinnati  original  Reformers, 
August  15,  and  Thomas  Wright,  of  the  Missouri  Conference,  one 
of  the  Expelled,  August  15.  These  are  from  obituaries  as  dated 
in  Western  Recorder. 

Union  Academy  of  Washington  County,  Vt.,  was  dedicated 
October  15,  1850,  with  Rev.  Ruel  Hanks,  a  rising  young  min- 

373 


374 


HISTOEY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


ister  of  the  Church  as  Principal.  Eev.  Frederick  Stier,  an 
original  Reformer  of  Maryland,  was  appointed  Agent  of  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  October,  1850,  with  China  as  the 
objective  for  missionary  operations.  The  writer  formed  the  ac- 
quaintance of  this  venerable  and  pious  man  in  this,  the  first  year 
of  his  itinerant  connection  with  the  Church,  at  the  hospitable 
home  of  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper.  Final  notice  of  him  later.  It  was 
during  this  year  that  the  Wesleyan  trials  and  expulsions  took 
place  in  England,  and  the  reforms  agitated  convulsed  the  parent 
body  to  its  centre.  The  London  Wesleyan  Times  was  established 
as  the  organ  of  the  Reformers.  What  infinite  pains  autocratic 
Methodism  has  taken  to  suppress  the  natural  and  acquired  rights 
of  Christian  freemen!  Impartial  generations  coming  will  marvel 
at  the  blindness  of  entailed  power.  The  Alabama  Conference 
proposed  to  establish  a  Male  High  School  at  Robinson's  Springs, 
January,  1851.  The  Muskingum  Conference  College  at  Cam- 
bridge was  reported  under  roof,  $2700  having  been  raised  in  the 
town  and  ^3000  to  be  raised  by  the  Conference,  March,  1851. 
July  26,  1851,  it  was  reported  that  the  Southern  Institute  of  the 
Alabama  Conference  at  Robinson's  Springs  had  secured  land 
worth  $2000  or  $3000  and  subscriptions  to  the  amount  of 
$25,000.  The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  selected  Rev.  David 
Wilson  for  the  China  mission,  and  Rev.  Daniel  Bagley  for 
Oregon,  March,  1851.  The  latter  reached  his  destination  and 
did  a  successful  work,  whose  fruit  remains  to  this  day,  in  the 
Oregon  Conference;  the  China  mission  miscarried.  The  Wes- 
leyan English  Conference  for  1851  reported  the  loss  of  55,000 
members,  due  to  the  expulsion  and  secession  of  Reformers.  Bas- 
com's  "Declaration  of  Rights"  was  published  as  an  extra  to  the 
official  paper,  September  6,  1851. 

A  controversy  took  place  in  Virginia  between  Rev.  Alexander 
Doniphan  and  Presiding  Elder  Rousee  on  the  "Question  and 
Answer  "  book  of  Evans  and  Honour,  with  the  usual  outcome  of 
polemical  defeat  for  the  defender  of  exclusive  prerogatives  in 
the  ministry.  A  prospectus  was  issued  for  a  Southern  paper  to 
be  called  the  Christian  Telegraph,  November,  1851.  Some  of  the 
averments  and  expositions  of  the  early  Reformers  as  to  the  gov- 
ernmental structure  of  the  old  Church  were  fully  vindicated  in  the 
opinion  delivered  by  Judge  Xelson  for  the  Supreme  Court,  sit- 
ting in  New  York  City,  in  the  suit  of  the  two  old  Methodisms 
over  the  Book  Concern  property.  The  full  text  is  published  in 
the  official  paper,  December  15,  1851,  v;ith  comments  by  "S.," 


''REFORMERS''  STILL  IN  THE  OLD  CHURCH  375 


W.  S.  Stockton,  through  the  December  numbers  of  the  paper,  in 
which  striking  parallels  are  pointed  out,  thus  putting  the  liighest 
legal  authority  of  the  country  on  the  side  of  the  Reformers  of 
1820-30.  It  was  during  this  year  that  extensive  agitation  took 
place  among  the  Philadelphia  Methodist  churches  in  favor  of  lay- 
delegation.  Conventions  were  held,  and  the  rights  of  the  laity 
to  participate  urged  with  much  moral  force  and  intelligent  con- 
viction. It  became  widespread.  A  Convention  was  held  in 
Washington,  D.  C,  to  sustain  the  Philadelphia  Reformers,  in 
January,  1852.  W.  S.  Stockton  and  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  offered 
strictures  on  the  movement  in  the  oflB.cial  paper,  showing  the  per- 
fect parallel ;  while  these  enlightened  brethren  of  the  new  Reform 
carefully  abstained  from  any  reference  to  the  "Radicals,"  either 
through  ignorance  of  history  twenty  years  before  or  a  prudent 
expediency.  The  now  venerable  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond  nibbed  his 
prolific  pen  anew  to  "write  down"  both  Judge  Nelson  and  the 
new  Reformers  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  JSlew  York  Christian 
Advocate,  addressed  to  Hon.  Reverdy  Johnson,  reproducing  his 
stale  "purse-string"  argument,  republishing  his  "Appeal  to  the 
Methodists,"  etc.  The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  met  in  Boston,  May,  1852,  and  not  only  was 
it  confronted  by  numerous  memorials,  but  large  and  influential 
delegations  appeared  advocating  the  reforms  specified;  they  were 
heard  before  a  committee,  which  finally  reported  that  "  any  action 
at  that  time  was  inexpedient,  as  there  was  no  evidence  that  it 
was  generally  desired  by  the  members  or  ministers  of  our 
Church."  ^  It  was  adopted  by  vote  of  one  hundred  and  sixty -nine 
to  three,  and  was  precisely  what  officials  answered  twenty-five 
years  before,  to  the  disgust  of  the  loyal  but  intelligent  men  of  the 
delegation,  who  knew  the  answer  was  but  an  evasion  of  the  issue. 
Rebuked  and  discouraged,  they  did  not  surrender,  and,  at  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1860,  a  more  favorable  report  was  wrested  from 
the  official  body.  It  was  in  the  early  part  of  this  agitation,  Feb- 
ruary 7,  1852,  that  E.  Yeates  Reese,  editor  of  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant, made  the  prophetic  declaration,  "  Lay-delegation  is  a  cer- 
tain futurity  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. "  It  was  received 
with  hooting  and  derision  by  the  entire  circle  of  its  official  press. 
It  was  also  during  this  general  discussion  that  W.  S.  Stockton  made 
plain  in  an  article  for  the  Baltimore  paper,  January  iO,  1852,  that 
the  forms  of  ordination  of  bishops,  elders,  and  deacons,  as  taken 
from  the  Church  of  England,  were  added  to  the  Discipline  of 

1  Simpson's  "  One  Hundred  Years,"  p.  174. 


376 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  IlEFORM 


1784  by  Dr.  Coke  without  Wesley's  authority  or  knowledge. 
The  question  has  been  heretofore  considered  and  need  not  be 
reopened. 

Rev.  Isaac  Webster;,  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  departed  this 
life  on  the  fourth  day  of  February,  1851,  and  was  buried  in  the 
Westminster  cemetery,  Carroll  County,  Md.  His  father  was 
Eev.  Richard  Webster,  a  local  preacher  of  Harford  County,  Md. 
Isaac  was  born  March  4,  1787,  licensed  to  preach  in  1819,  and, 
soon  thereafter,  embraced  the  principles  of  Reform,  and,  in  1828, 
withdrew  from  the  mother  Church  and  entered  the  itinerancy  of 
the  new  Church,  1829.  In  1848  he  was  paralyzed,  which  ended 
his  active  career.  He  made  a  farewell  visit  to  the  Maryland 
Conference  in  1850,  the  first  the  writer  ever  attended.  He  was 
of  respectable  abilities  and  unflinching  in  his  loyalty.  Colhouer's 
"  Founders  "  contains  a  full  sketch,  pp.  244-248.  Rev.  William 
Lamphier,  an  original  Reformer,  died  May,  1851,  a  local  preacher 
of  Maryland.  Rev.  James  H.  Harris  of  North  Carolina  has 
obituary  embalmment,  May  7,  1851.  He  was  honored  by  his 
brethren.  Rev.  Daniel  Weeden  of  Maryland,  local  preacher, 
died  July  19,  1851.  Rev.  Archibald  Hawkins,  of  the  Pittsburgh 
Conference,  is  recorded  departed  August  23,  1851,  —  an  early 
Reformer  and  a  leader  in  his  day. 

Rev.  Levi  R.  Reese  of  the  Maryland  Conference  departed  this 
life  in  Philadelphia,  September  19,  1851.  His  obsequies  took 
place  at  West  Baltimore  station  Sabbath  morning,  September  21, 
Dr.  Francis  Waters  preaching  the  sermon  and  Rev.  Augustus 
Webster,  Thomas  H.  Stockton,  L.  W.  Bates,  and  W.  T.  Wright 
assisting  in  the  services.  His  remains  were  deposited  in  the 
Baltimore  cemetery.  He  was  born  February  8,  1806,  in  Harford 
County,  a  son  of  David  and  Mary  Reese.  As  a  Christian  he  was 
consecrated,  as  a  scholar  studious,  as  a  preacher  popular  and  suc- 
cessful, as  a  Reformer  one  of  the  eleven  Expelled  in  Baltimore 
city,  and  for  a  score  of  years  he  asserted  and  maintained  leader- 
ship in  the  Church  of  his  choice.  He  was  chaplain  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  for  two  years,  1837-38,  and  had  the  close 
friendship  of  Henry  Clay.  In  the  autumn  of  1848  he  was  mar- 
ried, for  the  second  time,  to  Miss  Tamsey  Ann,  daughter  of 
Colonel  William  Hughlett  of  Talbot  County,  ISId.  After  the 
death  of  her  gifted  husband,  she  devoted  what  was  then  esteemed 
a  large  fortune  to  the  benevolences  of  the  Church  and  other 
Christian  enterprises,  and  so  continues  to  this  day  to  dispense 
almost  her  entire  income  in  works  of  charity  and  mercy,  with 


OBITUARIES  OF  NOBLE  REFORMERS  377 


shrinking  modesty.  She  is  preeminently  Maryland's  "elect 
lady."  Thus  passed  away  in  the  prime  of  his  days  a  man  of 
noble  physique,  exalted  intellect,  warm  heart,  and  magnetic 
presence,  whose  seals  and  impress  are  all  over  his  native  State. 
He  died  of  malarial  fever,  and  his  death-bed  was  a  scene  of 
Christian  triumph.  Colhouer's  "  Founders  "  has  a  full  sketch, 
pp.  206-212.  Eev.  Frederick  Stier,  while  pursuing  his  agency 
for  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  was  stricken  with  paralysis  at 
Fremont,  0.,  and  died  at  the  home  of  Eev.  A.  Abbott,  October 
17,  1851,  after  penning  the  experience,  "  my  mind  is  at  peace ; 
my  soul  cleaves  to  my  Saviour."  He  was  born  in  Frederick 
County,  Md.,  May  17,  1784.  Keceived  as  an  itinerant  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Baltimore  Conference,  in  1802,  in 
his  nineteenth  year,  he  continued  to  travel,  one  term  as  Presid- 
ing Elder,  for  twenty-three  years,  when  he  became  one  of  the 
original  members  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  in  1829.  A  full 
sketch  is  in  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  261-266.  Eev.  Joshua 
W.  Eutledge  was  appointed  to  succeed  him  as  Agent,  February, 
1852.  Eev.  Horatio  Hall,  an  original  Eeformer  of  Virginia, 
is  recorded  departed  February  7,  1852.  He  was  prominent 
in  Christian  and  Eeform  work.  Thus,  the  necrology  of  the 
new  Church  grew  apace  as  her  worthies  departed,  and  the 
least  recompense  that  can  be  paid  them  is  this  rescue  from 
oblivion. 

The  Tennessee  Conference  at  its  twenty-third  session,  at 
Gainesville,  October  17,  1851,  was  divided  into  Tennessee  and 
West  Tennessee.  The  boundaries  are  in  the  Discipline  of  1858.^ 
Bascom's  "  Summary  of  Eights "  was  published  in  the  Wesleyan 
Eeformer,  organ  of  the  expelled  and  seceding  English  Metho- 
dists, from  a  copy  sent  by  E.  Yeates  Eeese,  in  1852.    October  18, 

1  The  following  ministers  and  preachers  were  retained  in  the  Tennessee :  J.  L. 
Hawkins,  B.  F.  Duggan,  Joseph  Camper,  W.  J.  Finley,  J.  Hutchinson,  R.  P.  W. 
Balmain,  B.  H.  Stewart,  Thomas  Burgess,  R.  Hooper,  G.  Yost,  George  Jones, 
N.  A.  Keys,  J.  B.  Saunders,  M.  P.  Thompson,  Z.  Taylor.  R,  W.  Morris  removed 
to  Texas.  Unstationed  ministers  and  preachers :  Samuel  Elliott,  Allen  Wallis, 
Isaac  H.  Williams,  M.  Nelson,  John  Spinks,  Jordan  Chandler,  R.  B.  Collins,  Isaac 
St.  Clair,  Samuel  Cash,  L.  Satterfield,  P.  M.  Meyers,  James  Tillett,  J.  A.  Sharp, 
William  Gambol,  John  Spaw,  William  Brogdon,  Uriah  Davis,  and  Mark  Murry. 

In  the  West  Tennessee,  ministers  and  preachers:  Aswold  Potts,  Coleman 
Smith,  J.  C.  Lewes,  J.  H.  Cobb,  J.  C.  Crues,  Joseph  Holms,  W.  D.  Wilkenson, 
Lewis  Davis,  Thomas  Smith,  T.  D.  Stanley,  B.  H.  Hunt,  E.  G.  Williams,  H.  N. 
Ausbrooks.  Unstationed  ministers  and  preachers:  Z.  Biggs,  D.  Simons,  J.  J. 
Rodgers,  William  Blair,  P.  White,  W.  M.  Ray,  R.  Burton,  B.  W.  Johnson,  W.  R. 
Fayle,  AVilliam  Cottingham,  R.  Wright.  A  number  of  these  unstationed  men  in 
both  conferences  joined  the  itinerancy. 


378 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


1851,  tlie  "Wisconsin  Annual  Conference  was  formed  under  cir- 
cumstances that  make  detailed  mention  instructive  as  illustrating 
the  heterogeneous  character  of  Western  population.^  The  West- 
ern  Fountain,  at  Greenville,  111.,  heretofore  noticed,  was  enlarged, 
price  fifty  cents  a  volume,  Rev.  John  Waite,  editor.  Rev.  Josiah 
Varden  of  Maryland,  now  stationed  in  Cincinnati,  as  Western 
correspondent  of  the  official  paper,  February  28,  1852,  recites 
the  following  facts :  "  To-day  I  met  an  aged  and  honorable  mem- 
ber of  the  ^Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  This  brother  was  one 
of  the  prosecutors  in  1827-28  in  this  city.  Having  informed  me 
of  the  part  he  took  in  that  sad  affair,  and  assuring  me  that  in 
seeking  the  expulsion  of  those  men  he  thought  he  was  'doing  God 
service,'  viewing  them  as  'restless  spirits  '  up  to  the  last  General 
Conference  of  the  entire  body;  'but,  since  that  time,'  said  he,  'I 
confess  my  opinions  have  changed,  and  I  now  see  differently. 
The  action  of  that  body  dividing  the  Church  [1844]  without  its 
request,  or  without  even  asking  the  members  to  consent  to  divi- 
sion, convinced  me  that  the  preachers  had  a  power  beyond  their 
right,  and  that  a  change  of  government  was  indispensable ;  for, 
had  laymen  been  in  that  Conference,  this  chopping  of  the  Church 
in  two  had  never  occurred.'  Then,  looking  me  full  in  the  face, 
he  said,  'Ezekiel  Hall  and  others  whom  I  helped  to  expel  are  in 
heaven,  whilst  I  am  here;  and  now  I  honestly  confess  to  you, 
brother,  that  these  men  were  right  and  I  wrong. '  " 

Rev.  Abner  McGehee  of  Alabama  donated  310,000  to  Robinson 
Springs  College.    The  Central  Female  College  of  Atlanta,  Ga., 

1  The  following  is  the  unique  record  of  the  organization  as  officially  reported 
to  the  Baltimore  paper,  October  18,  1851:  "Immediately  after  the  first  quar- 
terly conference  of  the  First  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  town  of  Marcellon, 
Wis.,  organized  April  13,  1851,  a  convention  was  called  to  organize  an  An- 
nual Conference.  Rev.  Z.  Boynton  was  called  to  the  chair  and  L.  A.  Bliss 
appointed  secretary.  It  was  then  declared  by  the  convention  that  the  first  Church 
might  be  organized  into  a  Conference,  whereupon  those  present  proclaimed  the 
Conference  organized.  An  election  for  President  by  ballot  resulted  in  the  choice 
of  Z.  Boynton,  formerly  of  New  York.  Members:  Rev.  J.  Briggs,  formerly  of 
Xorth  Indiana,  nativity  South  Carolina ;  Rev.  E.  Leahey,  formerly  a  monk  of 
La  Trappe ;  Rev.  E.  Pickering,  formerly  of  M.  E.  Church,  nativity  England.  Lay- 
members:  L.  A.  Bliss,  formerly  of  M.  E.  Church,  nativity  Petersboro',  N.  Y.; 
John  Cruckson,  nativity  England;  H.  E.  Austin,  formerly  of  M.  P.  Church.  It 
was  resolved  that  the  Conference  should  be  bounded  by  the  state  lines.  E.  Leahey 
was  made  a  Conference  missionary.  Done  by  order  of  *  the  Annual  Conference 
of  the  First  M.  P.  Church  of  Wisconsin.'  "  Marcellon,  August  2-3,  1851.  Monk 
Leahey  afterward  travelled  in  the  Church,  making  something  of  a  sensation,  as 
such  perverts  from  Rome  are  apt  to  do,  but  he  passed  under  a  cloud  and  so 
departed.  At  the  General  Conference  of  18.54  the  Wisconsin  Annual  Conference 
was  represented  by  S.  P.  Huntington,  minister,  W.  J.  Ensign,  layman. 


DR.  T.  E.  BOND,  SR.,  RECALLED  TO  FIGHT  REFORM  379 

organized  with  Kev.  M.  F.  Eosser  as  Agent.  Rev.  Andrew 
Adgate  Lipscomb,  D.D.,  was  elected  President  of  the  McGehee 
College,  Robinson  Springs,  Ala.  Anent  the  General  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Boston,  May,  1852,  Hon. 
Daniel  Webster  was  invited  to  address  the  body  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  made  some  remarkable  animadversions 
upon  the  division  of  the  Church,  in  1844,  not  very  palatable  to 
the  brethren.  Just  before  the  Conference  assembled,  to  offset  the 
laymen's  Convention  in  Philadelphia  favoring  lay-representation. 
Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  Sr.,  and  his  son  Thomas  E.  manipulated  a 
counter  meeting  of  laymen  in  that  city.  It  was  known  as  the 
"Scapegoat  Conference."  Dr.  Bond,  Jr.,  addressing  the  lay- 
men's Convention,  had  the  effrontery  to  declare  that  Nicholas 
Snethen  on  his  death-bed  had  acknowledged  lay-representation  in 
the  new  Church  a  failure.  It  evoked  an  indignant  and  absolute 
denial  from  Worthington  G.,  son  of  Nicholas  Snethen,  then 
a  practising  lawyer  in  Washington,  D.  C.  Thus,  the  tongue 
of  slander  was  employed  by  the  fervid  partisans  of  the  old 
Church,  not  for  the  first  nor  for  the  last  time,  as  will  be  seen. 
How  thoroughly  alarmed  the  leading  members  of  that  General 
Conference  were  at  the  progress  of  lay-sentiment  in  the  Church 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  casting  about  for  an  editor  of 
the  New  York  official  paper,  the  most  thoroughly  equipped  for  a 
controversial  bout  with  its  advocates,  they  recalled  Dr.  Thomas 
E.  Bond  to  the  position.  He  entered  upon  his  second  contest 
with  laical  Reformers  with  such  a  heated  zeal,  and  gave  such  an 
insipid  rehash  of  the  old  arguments,  and  exhibited  so  much  men- 
tal enervation,  as  to  disappoint  expectation.  He  was  now  nearing 
the  close  of  his  eventful  career.  About  this  time,  also,  the 
Southern  Methodist  Pulpit,  edited  by  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  F.  Deems, 
expressed  sentiments  favorable  to  the  lay-delegation  movement 
in  Philadelphia.  He  was  at  once  taken  to  task  by  Rev.  Dr. 
M'Ferrin,  in  the  Nashville  Christian  Advocate,  for  his  audacity. 
Among  other  things,  in  reply,  Dr.  Deems  uttered  the  following 
prophecy,  "  In  regard  to  the  question  at  issue,  we  have  no  doubt 
that  if  he  [Dr.  M'Ferrin]  should  be  living  twenty  years  hence,  he 
will  sit  in  his  Conference  beside  lay-delegates."  It  came  to  be 
literally  true  within  fifteen  years,  as  will  be  seen.  Like  the 
movement  of  1820-30,  it  would  not  down  at  the  frown  of  official- 
ism; but  the  experience  of  that  period  taught  them  that  the 
thumb-screws  of  expulsion  and  defamation  could  not  be  success- 
fully employed  thg  second  time.    No  extreme  measures  were 


380 


niSTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


attempted  against  tlie  gritty  and  determined  leaders.^  It  will  be 
seen  how  it  culminated,  and,  at  the  very  verge  of  enforced  success, 
in  1860,  was  swallowed  up  and  defeated  by  the  Civil  War  crowd- 
ing out  all  other  issues  for  the  time  in  that  Church. 

Rev.  Benjamin  E-ichardson,  local  minister  of  Maryland  and  an 
original  Reformer,  passed  away;  obituary  March  6,  1852.  His 
worthy  sons,  John  W.  and  Beale  H.,  honored  their  father's  prin- 
ciples to  the  close  of  life.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Theron  Newman  of 
the  Maryland  locality,  March  13,  1852,  an  original  Reformer. 
Obituary  of  Rev.  Samuel  Butler,  an  original  Reformer  of  Ala- 
bama, April  10,  1852.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Randolph  S.  Smith  of 
Virginia,  an  original  Reformer,  May  1,  1852.  Obituary  of  Rev. 
Rhesa  Norris,  an  original  Reformer  of  the  Maryland  locality, 
May  8,  1852.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Jesse  Wright,  M.D.,  an  original 
Reformer  of  Pennsylvania,  June  26,  1852.  Obituary  of  Rev. 
Mark  Howard  of  Alabama,  an  original  Reformer,  July  3,  1852. 
Obituary  of  Rev.  John  Coe,  original  Reformer  of  North  Carolina, 
September  25,  1852.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Elias  Carroll,  original 
Reformer,  January  29, 1853,  resident  in  North  Carolina,  Alabama, 
and  Louisiana.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Thomas  Dunn,  M.D.,  original 
Reformer,  March  19,  1853.  His  labors  and  fidelity  must  not  be 
forgotten  in  Maryland  and  Philadelphia.  See  sketch  in  Col- 
houer's  "Founders,"  p.  382.  He  died  at  the  residence  of  his 
eldest  son,  in  Louisiana,  in  1852,  in  his  seventieth  year.  Obitu- 
ary of  Rev.  Noah  Dunin,  original  Reformer  of  New  York,  May  7, 
1853.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Avery  Melvin,  original  Reformer  of  the 
Maryland  locality,  June  4,  1853.  Obituary  of  Rev.  David  Watts, 
original  Reformer  of  the  Maryland  locality,  June  11,  1853. 
Obituary  of  Rev.  William  Coman,  original  Reformer  of  Virginia 
Conference,  July  28,  1853.  He  was  abundant  in  labors  and  sac- 
rifices. Rev.  Thomas  Melvin  of  the  Maryland  locality,  original 
Reformer,  obituary  June  18,  1853.  Obituary  of  Rev.  William 
E.  Bellamy,  original  Reformer  of  North  Carolina,  September  3, 
1853.  The  name  of  Bellamy  is  inseparable  from  the  history  in 
North  Carolina.  Obituary  of  Colonel  William  R.  Stuart,  elected 
President  of  the  initial  Reform  Convention  of  1827,  November  12, 
1853.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Samuel  Elliot,  original  Reformer  of 
Tennessee,  November  19,  1853.  He  did  a  noble  work  for  the 
cause  of  Christ  and  ecclesiastical  liberty.    Obituary  of  Rev. 

1  For  several  years  they  had  an  organ,  the  Philadelphia  Christian  Advocate, 
but  in  the  autumn  of  18.')3  it  met  an  enforced  discontinuance  from  want  of  sup- 
port and  pressure  to  squeeze  it  out  by  those  unfriendly. 


NECROLOGY  OF  EARLY  EEF0RMEB8  881 


Thomas  F.  Norris  of  the  Boston  Conference,  and  editor  and  pro- 
prietor of  the  Olive  Branch,  April  22,  1854.  He  was  born  on  the 
7th  of  November,  1792,  was  self-educated,  and,  in  1811,  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  itinerancy  of  the  New  England  Conference  of  the 
old  Church,  being  in  his  nineteenth  year.  He  withdrew  and 
united  his  fortunes  with  the  Reformers  of  1827-30,  and  spared 
neither  labor  nor  means  to  further  the  cause.  As  a  preacher,  he 
was  commanding  in  appearance  and  effective  in  address ;  was  fre- 
quently elected  President  of  the  Boston  Conference,  and  was  a 
member  of  the  General  Conferences  of  1842  and  1850.  He  peace- 
fully expired  on  the  21st  of  December,  1853,  having  successfully 
conducted  the  Boston  Olive  Branch  for  seventeen  years.  See 
Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  393-396. 

Obituary  of  John  Jolly  Harrod.  He  was  born  in  Harford 
County,  Md.,  in  1785,  and  early  in  life  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  In  1806  he  opened  a  book  store  in  Baltimore, 
which  was  the  headquarters  of  the  preachers,  and  where  he  heard, 
in  later  years,  the  reforms  in  the  Church  government  discussed; 
which  he  intelligently  embraced,  and  for  whose  advocacy  he  was 
Expelled  the  Church  of  his  conversion  and  choice,  being  of  the 
twenty-two  who  suffered  proscription  in  1827-28  as  laymen.  He 
was  the  father  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Book  Concern;  of  great 
administrative  ability,  though  over-sanguine  in  temperament,  and 
lacked  the  cautious  sagacity  of  John  Dickins,  who  sustained  the 
same  relation  to  the  mother  Church.  He  died  peacefully  on 
the  6th  of  January,  1854,  and  was  buried  from  West  Baltimore 
station,  Eev.  Drs.  T.  H.  Stockton,  S.  K.  Jennings,  and  S.  B. 
Southerland  officiating;  and  was  buried  in  Greenmount  cemetery, 
Baltimore.  Obituary  of  John  Chappell  of  Baltimore,  original 
Reformer  and  another  of  the  Expelled  of  1827  for  opinions'  sake. 
Born  in  England,  June  24,  1765,  he  was  converted  and  united 
with  the  Methodists  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
well  acquainted  with  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  heard  the 
former  preach  the  funeral  discourse  of  Whitefield  when  he  was 
about  six  years  old.  It  was  from  a  daughter  the  writer  ob- 
tained the  copy  of  this  sermon,  now  in  his  possession.  Accom- 
panied by  his  parents  he  left  London  on  the  7 th  of  April,  1795, 
arrived  in  Philadelphia,  and  soon  thereafter  settled  in  Baltimore 
and  united  with  the  Light  Street  church.  As  early  as  1824  he 
embraced  the  principles  of  Reform,  and  steadfastly  adhered  to 
them  at  every  sacrifice.  He  was  honored  by  the  new  Church, 
filling  all  the  official  positions.    His  reputation  was  without  a 


382  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


stain,  and  his  piety  of  the  highest  order.  He  aged  grandly, 
reaching  his  eighty-eighth  year,  expiring  peacefully  on  the  Sab- 
bath, October  23,  1853.  He  was  buried  from  St.  John's  church. 
The  obsequies  were  by  T.  H.  Stockton,  Dr.  Jennings,  Kev.  Henry 
Furlong,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Augustus  Webster, 
pastor  of  the  church,  and  Josiah  Varden.  That  such  a  man 
should  be  esteemed  unworthy  of  membership  in  the  mother 
Church,  is  a  blot  upon  her  persecuting  history  which  cannot  be 
wiped  out  —  worse  than  this,  no  attempt  has  ever  been  made  by 
her  historians  even  to  qualify  the  declaration  of  the  senior  Dr. 
Bond,  that  the  expulsions  of  that  day  were  a  "  high  and  holy  vin- 
dication." See  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  325-328.  Obituary 
of  E,ev.  Allen  W.  Blankenship,  original  Eeformer  of  Tennessee, 
February  18,  1854.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Samuel  Budd,  original 
Reformer  of  New  Jersey  Conference,  March  25,  1854.  Obituary 
of  Rev.  Seth  Speight  of  North  Carolina,  original  Reformer  and 
one  of  the  pioneers  of  this  Conference  not  to  be  forgotten,  April 
1,  1854.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Nicholas  Dorsey,  original  Reformer 
of  Maryland,  April  15,  1854.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Joshua  Inskeep 
in  Western  Recorder,  Reformer  of  Ohio  Conference,  August  28, 

1851.  Obituary  of  Rev.  John  Williams,  Reformer  of  Ohio  Con- 
ference, April  22,  1852.  Rev.  Joseph  Shipp,  early  worker  in 
Indiana  Conference  and  first  President  of  Wabash,  August  5, 

1852.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Lewis  Browning,  local  Reformer  of 
West  Virginia,  December  1,  1853.  Obituary  of  Rev.  Daniel 
Inskeep,  local  Reformer  of  Ohio,  December  1,  1853.  Rev.  Jere- 
miah F.  Pratt,  one  of  the  founders  of  Michigan  Conference,  Janu- 
ary 12,  1854.  Rev.  James  Munden  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  March  9, 
1854.    Basil  Longworth,  lay-Reformer  of  Ohio,  May  18,  1854. 

The  North  Illinois  Conference  having  passed  emphatic  resolu- 
tions on  slavery,  it  led  to  a  controversy  in  Western  Recorder 
between  C.  S.  Callgan,  Samuel  Dilly,  and  Daniel  Young,  in 
1851-52,  as  also  between  the  editor  and  the  Baltimore  paper. ^ 
The  Christian  Telegraph,  of  Atlanta,  Ga.,  lost  its  editor  by  death, 
the  Rev.  B.  S.  Anderson,  who  was  succeeded  by  Rev.  M.  F.  Ros- 
ser,  and  he  by  Rev.  A.  G.  Brewer,  1852.  A  storm  damaged  Cam- 
bridge College,  to  the  extent  of  $1500,  October,  1852,  and  it  never 
was  put  in  operation.    The  first  session  of  the  Platte  Annual  Con- 

1  Bassett's  "  History,"  pp.  170,  171,  gives  these  resolutions  in  full,  with  the 
details  of  the  controversy  growing  out  of  their  publication  in  the  two  papers  of  the 
Church.  Subsequent  resolutions  of  the  same  conference  were  refused  publication 
in  the  official  paper. 


CUBBENT  EVENTS  OF  MOMENT 


883 


f  erence  met  in  Missouri.  ^  The  Missionary  and  Sunday-School  Jour- 
nal was  issued  by  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  at  Pittsburgh, 
Pa.,  with  Rev.  John  Scott  as  editor.  It  was  a  monthly  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  year,  and  well  conducted.  The  Vermont  and  New 
York  Conferences  were  united  in  the  spring  of  1853;  ^  and  this 
was  the  beginning  of  a  consolidation  of  self -protection  of  the 
church  work  in  the  Northeast.  Its  soil  had  never  been  congenial 
to  Methodism,  and  the  new  Church  found  itself  environed  with 
obstacles  to  which  it  has  gradually  succumbed  in  the  last  forty 
years.  Rev.  Ruel  Hanks  resigned  the  principalship  of  Union 
Academy  in  Washington  County,  Vt.  Independent  Methodists, 
to  the  number  of  two  hundred,  united  with  the  New  Jersey  Con- 
ference, with  four  ministers  and  two  preachers,  April,  1853. 
Some  very  important  private  letters  of  Rev.  H.  B.  Bascom  were 
published  in  the  Baltimore  official  paper,  April  30,  1853,  which 
throw  much  light  upon  his  character  and  career.  Rev.  Dr. 
Samuel  K.  Jennings  returned  from  a  residence  of  some  years  in 
Alabama,  now  aged  eighty-three,  broken  in  health  from  a  stroke 
of  paralysis,  in  May,  1853.  He  took  up  his  residence  with  his 
daughter,  Mrs.  Dr.  Thomas  Owings,  where  he  continued  until 
his  demise.  Yadkin  Institute  was  projected  by  the  North  Caro- 
lina Conference,  in  1853.  The  name  of  the  Christian  Telegraphy 
local  paper  of  Georgia  and  adjacent  Conferences,  was  changed  to 
the  Southern  Olive  Tree,  March,  1854.  Bassett's  "  History 
says,  p.  179:  "In  1853  the  South  Illinois  Conference  was  set  off 
from  the  Illinois.    Its  first  President  was  Richard  Wright,  and 

1  The  record  in  the  official  paper  is  that  it  was  held  at  Collins's  camp-ground, 
near  Princeton,  Mercer  County,  Mo.,  some  time  in  September,  1852.  There  was 
"  a  full  attendance  of  the  members,"  but  there  is  no  list  given  of  those  who  "  com- 
pleted the  organization."  The  first  plan  of  appointments  is  given,  from  which  it 
is  known  that  J.  M.  Tuton  was  elected  President ;  Oregon  and  Soners's  circuit,  N. 
Winters ;  Savannah,  to  be  supplied ;  St.  Joseph,  Hugh  Maxwell ;  East  Grand  River, 
Lewis  Ellis;  Des  Moines  Mission,  John  Sexsmith;  Lagrange,  John  Huntsman; 
Maryville,  to  be  supplied ;  Kingston,  E.  Picket ;  Jesse  Gilliam,  without  appoint- 
ment ;  R.  Horn,  A.  L.  Collins,  J.  Holloway,  in  hands  of  the  President.  John  Sex- 
smith  continued  in  this  work  for  a  long  series  of  years,  and  has  been  succeeded 
by  a  worthy  son  who  holds  up  the  banner  of  the  Church.  Born  in  Virginia,  he 
continued  to  adhere  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  with  some  others  in  that 
section  after  the  separation  in  1855-58. 

2  The  New  York  Conference  met  this  year  at  Williamsburg,  N.Y.,  March  9, 
1853,  with  W.  H.  Miller,  President.  The  committee  from  the  Vermont  Confer- 
ence asking  for  consolidation  was:  P.  Weaver,  Ruel  Hanks,  J.  B.  Wiggins,  and 
L.  J.  Fish.  After  consideration  the  proposition  was  approved.  The  affairs  of 
Union  Academy,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Vermont  brethren,  were  considered, 
and  a  debt  of  $800  reported.  It  was  resolved  to  seek  for  another  principal  to 
succeed  Ruel  Hanks.    It  subsequently  passed  from  our  patronage  and  control. 


384 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


its  first  session  was  held  at  Brooks's  camp-ground.  This  Confer- 
ence stood  connected  with  the  'Methodist  Church'  until  the  re- 
union in  1877.  But,  meanwhile,  a  Conference  of  the  same  name, 
connected  with  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  after  the  sus- 
pension of  the  other  Conferences,  was  organized,  and  was  also  in 
operation  when  the  reunion  took  place."  Xo  other  data  are  dis- 
coverable by  the  writer  anent  these  Conferences.  Kev.  E.  C.  G. 
Nickens  was  prominent  in  organizing  and  perpetuating  the  Con- 
ference adhering  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  The  two 
bodies  were  merged  after  the  Union  Convention  of  1877,  and  has 
had  a  heroic  struggle,  as  the  South  Illinois  Conference,  for  en- 
largement. E-ev.  R.  F.  Shinn,  a  prominent  minister  of  the 
Church  in  the  West,  delivered  fifteen  lectures  in  review  of  the 
old  Church  polity,  which  were  so  cogently,  yet  tersely,  presented 
that  a  strong  demand  led  to  their  publication  in  book  form,  and 
a  large  sale  followed ;  but  in  every  such  instance,  evidence  of  the 
liberal  and  Christian  temper  of  the  people,  decadence  of  interest 
in  it  followed,  and  a  second  edition  was  not  published.^  The  in- 
disposition to  provoke  and  foster  controversy  is  to  be  commended 
on  general  principles  among  Christians;  but  the  reasons  for  the 
existence  of  a  denomination  forced  into  organization  by  the  arbi- 
trary expulsive  power  of  a  parent  body,  are  worthy  of  a  diligent 
literary  propagandism  until  every  Methodist  has  had  opportunity 
of  an  intelligent  and  voluntary  acceptance  or  rejection  of  them. 

The  salient  events  of  the  past  quadrennium  may  be  fittingly 
closed  with  the  announcement  of  the  decease  of  Rev.  Asa  Shinn, 
clouding  the  Church  with  gloom,  relieved  only  by  the  certainty 
of  his  departure  to  the  world  of  eternal  light  and  love.  He  was 
born  in  Xew  Jersey,  of  Quaker  parents.  May  3,  1781.  In  1788 
he  removed  with  them  to  one  of  the  inland  counties  of  Virginia. 
Here  he  lived  until  1795,  cut  off  from  educational  advantages, 
but  thirsting  for  knowledge  and  seizing  every  means  to  gratify 
it.  Removed  to  Harrison  County,  now  West  Virginia,  in  that 
year  with  his  parents,  in  1798  he  was  converted  under  the  Metho- 
dist preaching  of  Rev.  Robert  Manly.  In  1801  he  entered  the 
itinerancy  of  the  Baltimore  Conference  and  was  assigned  to  Red 
Stone  circuit  under  circumstances  heretofore  mentioned.  Passing 
over  his  career  until  1815,  having  a  few  years  before  issued  his 
masterful  "Plan  of  Salvation,"  he  fell  into  mental  alienation, 
caused,  as  his  physicians  testified,  by  an  accident  in  his  fifteenth 

1  "  A  Tribute  to  Our  Fathers,"  etc.  By  Rev.  R.  F.  Shinn.  Cincinnati,  Apple- 
gate  &  Co.   Baltimore  Book  Concern,   1853.    12mo.   264  pp.  Cloth. 


DECEASE  OF  REV.  ASA  SUIJSfN 


385 


year.  Passing  between  some  men  wlio  were  pitching  horseshoes 
for  quoits,  he  was  struck  on  the  head  by  a  calk  of  one  of  these 
shoes,  fracturing  tlie  skull.  A  successful  trephining  restored 
him,  but  left  him  liable  to  mental  disturbance,  which  four  times 
laid  him  aside,  the  last  permanently.  He  was  early  interested 
in  Reform  literature,  but  advanced  cautiously  to  the  acceptance 
of  its  principles.  The  expulsions  in  Baltimore,  with  McCaine's 
unanswerable  reply  to  Emory,  in  his  "Defence  of  the  Truth,'' 
settled  convictions  in  favor  of  the  Methodist  Reformation,  from 
which  he  never  swerved  a  hair's-breadth.  As  late  as  1842  he 
pronounced  McCaine's  work  "  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  master- 
ful productions  that  has  appeared  on  any  subject  during  the  pres- 
ent century;  and  the  pretension  that  the  arguments  of  this  book 
have  been  answered  is  a  mere  burlesque,  and  an  imposition  on 
the  public  mind,  of  which  those  who  make  the  pretension  ought 
to  be  ashamed."  Western  Recorder,  Vol.  III.  No.  30.  As  a 
polemical  writer  he  was  unexcelled,  the  more  in  that  his  oppo- 
nents always  admitted  his  perfect  fairness.  As  a  preacher,  his 
reputation  was  as  wide  as  the  land,  and  his  piety  deep  and  spir- 
itual. The  peroration  of  his  sermons  was  often  overwhelming. 
In  1843,  after  suffering  an  attack  of  inflammation  of  the  lungs, 
his  mental  condition  lapsed  into  senility.  He  was  removed  to  an 
asylum  in  Philadelphia,  and  thence  to  that  at  Brattleboro,  Vt., 
where  he  lived  quietly,  receiving  the  visits,  at  times,  of  his 
quondam  friends,  and  where  he  expired,  February  11,  1853,  in 
the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age.  His  remains  were  returned 
to  Pittsburgh,  and,  after  impressive  obsequies  in  the  First 
Methodist  Protestant  Church,  the  sermon  being  preached  by  his 
convert  and  friend,  Eev.  Dr.  George  Brown,  supplemented  by 
Rev.  Dr.  Cook,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  others 
participating,  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  Allegheny  cemetery,  a  fitting 
monument  covering  him.  This  is  a  meagre  sketch  of  one  of  the 
greatest  men  Methodism  ever  produced.  For  fuller  particulars 
see  the  oiBRcial  papers  of  the  Church  and  Colhouer's  "Founders," 
pp.  120-152.1 

1  Rev.  Dr.  John  Scott,  now  among  few  surviving  men  who  have  ever  seen 
Shinn,  says  that  he  saw  him  and  heard  him  preach  in  1842.  "  He  was  a  man  of 
medium  height,  of  well-rounded  form,  high  and  broad  forehead,  placid  counte- 
nance, and  keen  and  penetrating  eyes.  His  whole  appearance  and  bearing  was 
deeply  impressive."  This  answers  to  the  several  portraits  of  him  preserved  in  the 
picture  gallery  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern.  See  "  Recollections  of  Fifty  Years 
in  the  Ministry,  with  numerous  character  sketches,"  by  John  Scott,  D.D.  Meth- 
odist Protestant  Board  of  Publication,  Pittsburgh  and  Baltimore.  5|x  8  inches. 
495  pp.  Cloth,  with  a  frontispiece  of  the  author.  1898. 
VOL.  II — 2  c 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


The  sixth  General  Conference ;  roster  of  members ;  sparse  attendance  —  Digest  of 
its  doings  —  Missionary  and  Sunday-School  Journal  had  been  established  in 
aid  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions;  report  of  its  doings  —  Report  of  the 
Book  Concern  the  best  ever  made  both  for  book  sales  and  subscriptions  to  the 
paper  —  Option  given  Annual  Conferences  to  hold  Electoral  College  on  any  day 
of  its  sessions  —  Report  on  slavery  question  conservative  from  a  committee  of 
Northern  brethren,  and  adopted  —  A  plan  for  a  division  of  the  Book  Concern 
reported  by  Rev.  John  Scott,  and  subsequently  adopted  under  protest  from 
some  of  the  brethren ;  intended  as  a  peace  measure,  though  it  failed  of  this 
purpose  —  New  hymn  book  ordered  —  Statistics,  and  reflections  thereon  —  was 
the  new  Church  a  success  ?  Proven  by  the  facts  —  Necrology  of  the  new 
Church  in  old  Reformers ;  Jennings,  John  S.  Reese,  Avery,  McCaine,  Hopper, 
and  others. 


The  sixth  General  Conference  assembled  at  Steubenville,  0., 
Tuesday,  May  2,  1854.  John  Burns  was  elected  President  pro 
tern.,  and  W.  H.  Wills,  Secretary.  The  following  are  the  repre- 
sentatives elected  to  this  Conference :  — 


Maine 

Ministers  Laymen 
David  Hill  i  Abner  Ramsdell  i 

Boston 

William  Tozer  William  Wyman 

Genesee 

S.  M.  Short  William  N.  Burt  i 

Onondaga 

J.  R.  Robison  J.  W.  Little^ 

New  York  and  Vermont 
J.  J.  Smith  D.  C.  Jordan i 

Pennsylvania 
R.  E.  Gorman  J.  Moss 

New  Jersey 

T.  T.  Heissi  1.  W.  Stangeri 

1  Absent. 
386 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1854 


Martland 


Ministers 
J.  S.  Reese 
E.  Y.  Reese 
S.  B.  Southerland 
Josiah  Varden 
Washington  Roby  i 


R.  B.  Thomson 
J.  G.  Whitfield 
W.  W.  Walker 


William  H.  Wills 
John  F.  Speight 
Alson  Grayi 


Laymen 
George  Vickers 
Wesley  Starr 
C.  W.  Button 
W.  D.  Masseyi 
J.  B.  Thomas  i 


Virginia 


H.  B.  WoodhousQ 
James  M,  Smith 
M.  Langhorne  ^ 

North  Carolina 

A.  Nicholson 
M.  C.  Whitaker 
Calvin  Johnston 


South  Carolina 


John  Burdine 


Isaiah  C.  Wallace 


O.  H.  Shaver 
James  F.  Smith 
Alexander  McCaine  ^ 


James  Meek  ^ 

G.  W.  Johnston  i 

H.  M.  A.  Cassidayi 
Joseph  Camper 

W.  D.  Wilkerson 
Fletcher  Tevis 


Georgia 


Alabama 


Mississippi 


Louisiana 


Texas 


Tennessee 


R.  A.  Gates  1 


John  Webb 


B.  Halli 
John  P.  Cook! 
Edward  Harrison  ^ 


W.  B.  Lotti 


Samuel  Johnston  ^ 


David  Lane  ^ 


J.  L.  Armstrong 


West  Tennessee 


Indiana 


J.  M.  Hayes 


J.  J.  Amos 


J.  C.  Wright 


Wabash 

N.  T.  Catterlin 

1  Absent. 


388 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Pittsburgh 


Ministers 
George  Brown 
John  Clark 
John  Scott 
P.  T.  Laishley 
D.  B.  Dorsey 


Zechariah  Ragan 
John  Bums 
George  Clancy 


J.  M.  Flood 
W.  B.  Evans 
A.  H.  Bassett 

J.  P.  Johnston 
Daniel  Young 
James  Edmonson  i 
Samuel  Hughes 
J.  L.  Turner 
S.  P.  Huntington  i 
William  Patterson  ^ 
J.  G.  Walker  1 
Reddick  Horn 
E.  E.  Parrish  i 


Laymen 
William  ^liller 
J.  T.  Dagg  1 
C.  W.  Newloni 
J.  L.  Phillips  1 
John  Davis 


Muskingum 
Ohio 

Illinois 
North  Illinois 

South  Illinois 

Missouri 
Michigan 
Wisconsin 

Iowa 
Arkansas 

Platte 

Oregon 


T.  A.  Reed 
Erancis  Scott 
T.  Hanna 


J.  Ashton 
Shadford  Easton 
D.  C.  Carson 


S.  K.  Swingleyi 
William  Cullen 

Nelson  Moore  ^ 
J.  Carpenter! 
T.  Hinman 
W.  J.  Ensign  1 
William  Pettitt  i 
P.  P.  Vanhoose  i 
J.  Coleman  1 
G.  Parrish  i 


Hunts ville  and  Florida  Conferences  were  not  heard  from. 
There  were  twenty-three  Conferences  represented  by  thirty- 

1  Absent. 


SALIENT  CONFEEENCE  BUSINESS  889 


seven  ministers  and  twenty-five  laymen,  total,  62  out  of  102. 
On  the  first  day  but  thirty-one  answered  the  roll-call.  The 
writer  can  discover  nothing  special  to  account  for  this  large 
absenteeism,  except  as  in  former  assemblies.  The  work  being 
continental,  travel  by  horseback  and  mail  stage  for  the  most 
part  a  necessity,  and  no  provision,  as  a  rule,  being  made  for  the 
travelling  expenses  of  the  representatives,  even  in  Maryland,  in 
that  day,  must  be  accepted  as  reasons  for  the  fact.  The  manu- 
script minutes,  of  which  the  printed  are  a  literal  transcript,  are 
unusually  full,  making  of  the  latter  forty-eight  printed  octavo 
pages,  and  fifty-six  of  reports.  Condensed,  the  salient  transac- 
tions are  as  follows :  — 

On  the  second  day  the  ballot  for  President  showed  29  out  of 
51  votes  for  John  Burnes,  declared  elected;  William  H.  Wills 
and  John  Scott,  Secretaries.  On  the  third  day  the  President 
announced  the  permanent  committees,  with  chairmen  as  follows : 
Journals,  J.  G.  Whitfield ;  Boundaries,  P.  T.  Laishley ;  Judiciary, 
George  Brown;  Executive,  Z.  Ragan;  College,  B.  Thomson; 
Church  Periodical  and  Book  Concern,  George  Clancy ;  Means  of 
Grace,  S.  B.  Southerland;  Finance,  W.  W.  Walker;  Orders,  S. 
M.  Short;  Sabbath-schools,  J.  M.  Flood;  Home  and  Foreign 
Missions,  J.  P.  Johnston;  Ratio  of  Representation,  E.  Yeates 
Reese;  Statistics,  A.  H.  Bassett;  Allowance  of  Ministers,  H. 
B.  Woodhouse.  From  the  various  reports  of  committees,  as 
printed  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Minutes,  a  summary  of  business 
may  be  gleaned.  The  trustees  of  Madison  College  give,  in  detail, 
all  the  facts  of  its  history  to  date,  no  longer  of  special  interest 
to  the  Church  beyond  the  digest  already  given.  On  petition  of 
the  Platte  Conference,  Des  Moines  mission  was  placed  under  the 
care  of  the  Board  of  Missions,  and  the  report  is  in  full  of  Platte 
district  and  the  Mission  territory.  The  Report  of  the  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  is  elaborate  and  interesting,  as  noting  the  initial 
work  of  the  new  Church  in  this  direction.  They  report  for  the 
Oregon  mission,  under  Daniel  Bagley,  the  organization  of  a  mis- 
sion conference  in  that  distant  territory,  with  five  ministers,  two 
preachers,  and  120  members,  one  house  of  worship  erected  and 
others  building.  The  miscarriage  of  the  China  mission  is  de- 
tailed, and  the  special  funds  on  hand  still  reserved  for  that  pur- 
pose. The  establishment  of  the  Missionary  and  Sunday-School 
Journal  is  adverted  to,  with  the  statement  that  it  had  paid  its 
own  expenses;  and  it  is  urged  for  continuance.  The  Board  had 
obtained  a  charter  from  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  which 


390  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


is  given  in  full,  as  also  a  full  report  of  the  Treasurer,  W.  J. 
Troth,  from  which  it  appears  that  S4925.03  had  been  collected 
during  the  quadrennium  by  the  Agents,  Frederick  Stier  and  J. 
W.  Rutledge,  and  ^3404.27  disbursed. 

Steubenville  station,  where  the  Conference  was  held,  petitioned 
for  a  modification  of  the  Eestrictive  Kule  in  certain  emergencies. 
The  Baltimore  Book  Directory  reported  in  detail,  showing  that 
of  the  pulpit  edition  of  the  hymn  book  of  1500,  730  had  been  sold, 
and  of  the  common  hymn  book  nearly  all  of  8000  had  been  dis- 
posed of,  and  of  the  revival  hymn  book  3000,  and  of  Disciplines 
7000.  Of  McCaine's  "Defence  of  the  Truth"  nearly  all  of  1500, 
and  of  the  "Question  and  Answer"  book  4000  out  of  5000,  and 
750  out  of  1000  copies  of  the  last  General  Conference  Minutes. 
The  official  paper  had  slowly  increased  in  circulation,  and  was  in 
improved  typographical  condition.  The  assets  are  enumerated  at 
a  total  of  613,914.52,  consisting  of  books,  stereotypes,  book  ac- 
counts, promissory  notes,  and  87000  of  overdue  subscriptions  to 
the  periodical,  believed  to  be  good,  and  cash  in  hand  of  ^2014. 52. 
The  liabilities  are  set  down  at  $8192.27,  indicating  a  net  gain 
during  the  quadrennium  of  $4922. 25.  For  the  first  time  in  its 
history  the  Concern  was  free  of  debt,  with  over  $2000  cash  in 
hand.  Tables  of  receipts  for  books  are  given,  showing  the  sales 
to  be  a  total  of  $13,720.64  for  the  quadrennium,  and  for  the 
Methodist  Protestant  of  $20,223.41,  for  the  same  period.  The 
actual  circulation  of  the  periodical  is  not  given,  but  it  was  about 
4400,  or  the  largest  it  has  ever  attained  in  its  history,  before  or 
since,  plus  the  circulation  of  the  Western  Recorder  and  the  South- 
ern Olive  Tree,  together  about  4000  more,  in  a  church  member- 
ship of  72,000,  or  about  one  in  nine,  a  showing  also  never  since 
equalled,  and  unsurpassed  by  any  of  the  old  Church  Advocates 
then  or  since.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  reli- 
gious literature  in  competition  with  official  church  organs  in  that 
day  was  a  mere  bagatelle  compared  with  that  of  recent  years. 
Much  of  the  success  of  the  publishing  interests  was  due  to  the 
exceptional  ability  displayed,  both  literary  and  business,  by  the 
editor  and  Agent,  Rev.  E.  Yeates  Reese,  at  a  salary  of  $1100  a 
year.  Of  the  book  sales  and  subscriptions  to  the  periodical, 
Maryland  contributed  about  one-fourth  of  the  total.  For  the 
latter,  Virginia,  Alabama,  Xorth  Carolina,  Pittsburgh,  and 
Georgia  stood  in  the  order  named. 

Option  was  given  the  Annual  Conference  Electoral  Colleges  to 
meet  on  any  day  of  the  session.    A  number  of  petitions  and  Con- 


ANOTHER  COMPROMISE  ON  SLAVERY  391 


ference  resolutions  were  presented  to  strike  out  the  word  "  white  " 
from  the  Constitution  and  Discipline.  Others  demanded  its  re- 
tention. There  was,  however,  quite  an  irenic  and  pacific  spirit 
exhibited  by  the  representatives  on  the  slavery  question,  as  it 
came  before  the  body  on  the  demand  of  the  North  Illinois  Con- 
ference for  the  censure  of  the  editor  of  the  official  paper  for 
refusing,  after  the  first  time,  to  continue  publishing  the  drastic 
resolutions  of  that  body.  It  was  referred  to  a  special  committee, 
with  the  usual  result  of  a  majority  and  a  minority  report.  The 
resultant  action  of  the  Conference  as  to  the  North  Illinois  Con- 
ference resolutions,  which  the  editor  of  the  official  paper  declined 
to  publish,  and  the  slavery  question,  as  such,  appears  to  be  summed 
up  in  the  report  of  the  Executive  Committee :  "  First,  resolved, 
in  the  opinion  of  this  General  Conference,  that  the  holding  of 
men,  women,  or  children  in  a  state  of  involuntary  servitude,  for 
the  purpose  of  gain,  where  the  civil  law  will  admit  of  emancipa- 
tion, and  where  the  interest  of  the  slave  would  be  promoted 
thereby,  is  a  violation  of  the  morality  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures. Second,  resolved  that,  according  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church,  taking  the  word  of  God  for  the 
rule,  the  local  judiciary,  and  not  the  General  Conference,  is 
the  proper  tribunal  by  which  all  questions  of  morality,  bearing 
upon  the  standing  of  members  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  should  be  determined."  The  committee  was  Z.  Eagan, 
S.  M.  Short,  Truman  Hinman,  and  J.  J.  Smith,  all  from  the 
North  and  West.  It  seems  to  have  passed  with  practical  una- 
nimity. The  portion  involved  in  the  second  resolution,  though 
not  by  this  action  made  a  part  of  the  organic  law  of  the  Church, 
was  looked  upon  by  many,  then  and  since,  as  a  solemn  declaration 
of  a  general  principle,  under  which,  in  recent  years,  resolves 
upon  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic,  specially  with  a  party 
bias,  by  the  General  Conference,  were  declared  inconsistent  with 
this  compact.  There  can  be  little  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the 
general  principle,  otherwise  such  resolves  would  be  construed 
rightly  as  having  the  force  of  additions  to  the  Articles  of  Eeligion 
and  of  Wesley's  General  Kules.  The  principle  has,  however, 
been  overruled  on  the  theory  that,  as  a  General  Conference  reso- 
lution, it  could  not  bind  restrictively  any  future  assembly  of  that 
body.  It  is  probable  that  the  unanimity  exhibited  in  this  dispo- 
sition of  the  foregoing  matter  was  due  to  a  quiet  understanding 
that  the  grievance  complained  of  by  North  Illinois,  and  those 
who  wished  a  medium  for  the  free  adverse  discussion  of  slavery, 


392 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


would  be  provided  for  in  future  by  a  division  of  the  Book  Concern 
and  the  establishment  of  a  Western  official  paper.  This  provision 
may  now  be  considered. 

The  report  of  the  committee  of  six,  of  which  John  Scott  was 
Chairman,  on  the  "Church  Paper,"  foreshadowed  the  plan.  The 
prosperous  condition  of  the  Concern  seemed  to  favor  its  execution 
by  brethren  from  the  North  and  West,  while '  those  of  the  East 
and  South  acquiesced  in  it  as  another  peace  measure  by  which 
both  parties  hoped  the  menace  of  Church  division  might  be  laid. 
Thus  favorably  entertained,  it  was  referred  to  a  special  com- 
mittee, which  matured  and  reported  a  Plan  for  Division,  and 
which  was  subsequently  adopted  by  a  practically  unanimous  vote. 
It  may  be  found  in  full  in  Eeport  No.  52,  Appendix  to  Minutes 
of  1854.  Its  provisions,  when  condensed,  were  to  the  effect  that 
the  "Western  establishment  shall  be  called  the  'Western  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Book  Concern,'  and  the  paper  to  be  called  the 
Western  Methodist  Protestant.^'  The  Annual  Conferences  that 
agree  to  support  it  were  to  meet  in  delegated  Convention  on  the 
first  Wednesday  of  the  ensuing  November  at  Zanesville,  0., 
which  was  to  mature  all  the  details  for  its  government.  It  was 
agreed  that  if  ten  Western  Conferences  enter  it,  the  Baltimore 
Book  Concern  should  pay  that  of  the  West  $2000.  If  a  less  or 
greater  number  of  Conferences  should  enter  the  plan,  then  the 
sum  should  be  graduated  accordingly,  not  less  than  $1500  and  not 
more  than  $2500.  Provision  was  made  for  a  like  Convention  of 
the  adhering  Conferences  to  meet  in  Baltimore  the  first  Wednes- 
day in  June,  1855,  and  to  have  like  authority  for  developing 
details  of  government.  The  old  charter  was  to  be  abrogated  and 
new  ones  secured  for  the  respective  Concerns,  both  hereafter  to 
be  controlled  by  Conventions  of  Conferences,  to  meet  at  the  time 
and  place  of  the  General  Conference,  but  to  be  independent  of  its 
control.  As  far  as  the  representatives  then  present  felt  free  to 
pledge  their  constituents,  the  following  Conferences  adhered  to 
the  AVestern  Concern:  Muskingum,  Ohio,  Wabash,  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  Illinois,  North  and  South  Illinois,  Iowa,  Genesee, 
and  Onondaga;  eleven.  Those  adhering  to  the  Eastern  Concern: 
Maryland,  Virginia,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Alabama,  West  Tennessee,  Boston,  Missouri,  and  Pennsylvania; 
ten.  As  viewed  at  this  distance  of  time,  it  was  a  bold  move- 
ment, and  constructively,  at  least,  a  violation  of  the  Eleventh 
Elementary  Principle  forbidding  "independent  sovereignties." 
As  viewed  at  the  time,  it  was  heroic  treatment  of  a  serious  church 


DIVISION  OF  BALTIMORE  BOOK  CONCERN  393 


malady,  justified  by  the  unanimity  of  consent.  It  will  be  seen 
that  the  representatives  who  were  doubtful  of  the  choice  of  their 
constituents  deferred  decision  until  they  could  be  consulted, 
notably  Pittsburgh  and  New  York.  One  honest  and  far-sighted 
representative,  Dr.  J.  L.  Armstrong,  layman  of  Tennessee,  entered 
his  formal  protest  against  the  whole  plan.  See  Appendix  No.  56 
to  Minutes.^ 

The  Board  of  Missions  was  constituted  as  follows  for  the  next 
quadrennium :  Revs.  William  Collier,  John  Scott,  George  Brown, 
P.  T.  Laishley,  and  John  Clark;  Messrs.  W.  J.  Troth,  William 
Miller,  John  Macaskey,  Charles  Craig,  William  Henderson,  John 
N.  Sands,  and  James  Rind.  Several  Conferences  having  peti- 
tioned for  the  abolition  of  the  order  of  Deacon,  the  action  of  the 
Conference  was,  "No  necessity  for  the  change."  The  Committee 
on  Ratio  of  Representation  report  that  they  find  the  number 
elected  to  this  General  Conference  "  to  be  over  one  hundred  —  the 
constitutional  limit."  The  ratio  was  fixed  at  one  minister  and 
one  layman  for  every  1750  members,  instead  of  1500.  Rev. 
Josiah  Varden  having  been  appointed  for  the  third  year  to 
Cincinnati  station  in  violation  of  the  Restrictive  Rule,  it  was 
brought  before  the  Conference  by  the  Committee  on  Journals, 
who  reported  that  it  was  such  a  violation,  as  he  was  not  trans- 
ferred to  the  Ohio  from  the  Maryland  Conference  after  the  second 
year.  Various  motions  were  submitted,  and,  finally,  the  follow- 
ing, by  that  ever  discreet  and  sagacious  man.  Dr.  John  S. 
Reese,  was  adopted  in  substance,  that  the  action  of  the  Ohio  Con- 
ference does  "  not  call  for  censure  by  this  General  Conference ; " 
and  so  men  of  his  type  circumvented  the  hard  and  fast  sticklers 
for  absolute  adherence  to  cast-iron  law.  The  essential  fact  in 
the  case  was,  that  Varden  had  a  grown  daughter  so  ill  of  a  ner- 
vous affection  at  the  time  of  the  third  year  appointment  that  it  was 
impossible  even  to  remove  her  from  the  parsonage.  She  died 
during  the  third  year.  A  revised  edition  of  the  hymn  book  was 
ordered,  and  a  committee  of  eight  appointed  from  widely  sepa- 

1  Rev.  George  Brown  in  his  *'  Itinerant  Life,"  p.  365,  states  that  "while  he  did 
not  enter  formal  protest  he  did  declare  that  the  General  Conference  had  *  started 
an  entering  wedge  —  division  would  follow.'  When  I  sat  down  with  a  sad  heart, 
unable  to  restrain  my  tears,  Dr.  Thomson  of  Virginia  came  to  me  and  in  the 
blandest  tones  possible  said,  '  I  regard  this  as  a  peace  measure.'  But  I  said, 
*  Where  will  be  the  use  of  the  General  Conference  at  all  when  our  general  inter- 
ests are  thrown  out  to  be  managed  by  conventions?'"  Armstrong  and  Brown 
had  the  prescience  of  seers,  but  to  what  avail  ?  The  condition  of  public  sentiment 
in  State  and  Church  was  such  that  nothing  could  stay  the  inevitable. 


394 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


rated  Conferences,  more  than  half  of  whom  failed  to  act.  The 
work  went  on,  however,  principally  devolving  on  E.  Yeates  Eeese; 
the  book  was  adopted  East  and  South,  as  ordered  by  the  General 
Conference  of  1858,  and  it  remained  the  book  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  until  the  General  Conference  of  1880  ordered 
a  new  book  for  the  reunited  Church;  the  Conference  West  and 
North,  as  the  Methodist  Church,  having,  after  1858,  compiled  a 
new  book,  principally  by  Alexander  Clark.  The  committee  of 
fifteen,  of  1880,  adopted  the  "Tribute  of  Praise,"  and  it  has  since 
been  used  by  the  entire  Church,  now  once  more  continentally 
bounded. 

A  paper  was  passed,  offered  by  George  Brown  and  John  S. 
Reese,  calling  the  attention  of  the  Electoral  Colleges  to  the  pro- 
vision of  the  Convention  of  1830,  recognizing  the  claim  of  the 
local  ministers  to  election  to  the  General  Conference  in  suitable 
proportion.  The  courtesy  was  largely  disregarded  in  the  elec- 
tions of  1854,  the  Maryland  Conference  allowing  but  one  in  E. 
Yeates  Reese,  a  local  elder,  and  editor  of  the  official  paper. 
Lynchburg,  Va.,  was  selected  as  the  place  of  the  next  General 
Conference  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five  out  of  fifty-eight.  Rev. 
Ulysses  Ward  of  Washington,  D.  C,  having  issued  a  volume 
of  Snethen's  Sermons,  tendered  a  gift  of  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  unbound  copies  for  the  benefit  of  Madison  College,  and  it 
was  so  reported  to  the  General  Conference.  They  appear  to 
have  at  last  become  the  property  of  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern, 
bound,  and,  after  a  number  of  years,  finally  sold.  They  show 
the  imperial  intellect  of  Snethen,  but  give  no  sign  of  his  fervid 
eloquence,  written  as  they  were  in  his  old  age.^ 

The  Committee  on  Statistics  presented  the  fullest  report  ever 
submitted,  through  the  painstaking  labor  of  its  Chairman,  A.  H. 
Bassett.  As  this  was  the  last  General  Conference  attended  by 
the  representatives  North  and  West  until  the  reunion  in  1877,  it 
is  instructive  to  give  the  tabular  statement  in  full,  and  justifies 
the  space  given  to  its  transactions.  It  will  be  seen  from  these 
statistics,  in  comparison  with  preceding  ones,  that  from  a  mem- 
bership of  about  5000  in  1828-30,  within  twenty-five  years  a  total 
is  shown  of  70,000,  from  100  or  more  itinerants  to  nearly  1000. 
There  were  78  stations,  405  circuits,  and  103  missions.  Nearly 
1000  houses  of  worship  had  been  built  at  a  valuation  of  over 
31,000,000,  with  118  parsonages.  It  meant  an  average  value  of 
$1000  for  each  building,  — and  this  sum  went  far  in  that  day  out 
1  A  volume  is  preserved  in  the  writer's  collection. 


PRONOUNCED  SUCCESS  OF  NEW  CHURCH 


395 


of  the  cities,  —  and  an  average  of  one  church  in  about  every  eight 
days  of  the  whole  twenty-five  years.  Had  the  new  Church  suc- 
ceeded? Compare  this  success  with  that  of  the  mother  Church, 
for  the  same  relative  period  of  time,  at  her  initial,  or  with  any 
other  Church  in  the  country;  and  by  this  very  unreliable  test  of 
true  success,  numbers  and  property,  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  was  a  success,  all  prejudiced  historic  statements  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  It  shall  be  shown  by  the  same  class 
of  facts  that  it  is  a  success  to-day,  after  seventy  years  of  trial  and 
effort,  with  a  marvellous  moral  and  collateral  aggregation  estab- 
lished by  concomitant  facts,  atrabilious  brethren  from  within  and 
ignorant  partisan  traducers  from  without  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 

Statistics  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 


Annual  Conference 
Districts 

Sta- 
tions 

Cir- 
cuits 

Mis- 
sions 

Itin't 
Min.tfc 
Pre. 

Unsta. 
Min.  & 
Pre. 

Mem- 
bers 

Houses 

r^f  WT r^f 

01  w  or- 
ship 

Par- 
son- 
ages 

Est'd  val. 
01  onurcli 
Property 

Maine 

6 

10 

4 

500 

1 

1 

1,800 

Boston 

13 

11 

3 

426 

13 

22,100 

N.  Y.  &  Verm't 

8 

17 

5 

28 

33 

1,609 

37 

"q 

70,000 

Onondaga 

1 

19 

3 

44 

27 

1,308 

83 

6 

11,100 

Genesee 

1 

13 

1 

18 

13 

925 

9 

3 

12,100 

New  Jersey 

1 

7 

2 

11 

16 

702 

10 

8,000 

Pennsylvania 

7 

1 

8 

14 

555 

5 

4,100 

Pittsburgh 

8 

30 

8 

59 

68 

6,066 

66 

6 

121,725 

Muskingum 

6 

29 

7 

56 

66 

6,100 

126 

9 

70,855 

Ohio 

5 

26 

9 

60 

70 

5,689 

91 

12 

101,250 

Michigan 

1 

19 

7 

47 

28 

1,469 

6 

4,800 

Indiana 

1 

11 

5 

22 

24 

2,031 

25 

13,000 

Wabash 

8 

3 

20 

17 

1,014 

10 

2 

4,925 

Illinois 

14 

3 

17 

26 

1,264 

17 

4 

14,500 

North  Illinois 

2 

23 

43 

33 

1,549 

12 

15 

12,550 

South  Illinois 

12 

15 

20 

1,264 

10 

4 

3,670 

Iowa 

8 

*3 

19 

10 

800 

1 

2,000 

Maryland 

14 

28 

4 

66 

74 

6,746 

165 

46 

348,000 

Virginia 

3 

12 

8 

37 

25 

4,729 

51 

1 

44,750 

North  Carolina 

1 

12 

3 

41 

21 

5,397 

66 

22,080 

South  Carolina 

6 

9 

6 

733 

10 

30,000 

Tennessee 

i 

5 

3 

17 

11 

1,800 

12 

10,000 

West  Tennessee 

4 

4 

20 

10 

908 

24 

3,500 

Georgia 

3 

18 

2 

55 

12 

3,162 

25 

,  i 

5,000 

Florida 

3 

3 

12 

1 

800 

11 

5,400 

Alabama 

5 

17 

2 

39 

50 

4,375 

91 

2 

44,500 

Huntsville 

6 

1 

9 

13 

1,000 

Mississippi 

"i 

10 

3 

33 

21 

2,421 

38 

5,570 

Missouri 

7 

2 

18 

6 

1,800 

Platte 

7 

6 

15 

12 

650 

i 

i",6oo 

Arkansas 

10 

15 

11 

880 

10 

3,000 

Louisiana 

6 

i 

13 

7 

676 

20 

10,000 

Texas 

8 

4 

22 

5 

550 

Oreg'n  Mis.  Con. 

7 

120 

i 

1,000 

Total 

78 

405 

103 

916 

767 

70,018 

982 

118 

1,009,275 

39G 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


After  sessions  during  two  weeks,  the  General  Conference  ad- 
journed, May  16,  1854,  with  closing  religious  services  by  George 
Brown. 

A  few  notes  may  be  made  of  the  doings  of  the  mother  Metho- 
disms  North  and  South  meantime.  In  the  General  Conference 
of  the  latter,  in  1854,  at  Columbus,  Ga.,  their  Book  Concern  was 
permanently  located  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  and  George  F.  Pierce, 
John  Early,  and  Hubbard  H.  Kavanaugh  were  elected  bishops. 
In  the  General  Conference  of  the  former,  in  1856,  their  missions 
in  Africa,  owing  to  the  peril  to  health  and  the  expense  of  the 
journey,  were  accommodated  by  the  election  of  Francis  Burns,  a 
colored  member  of  the  Conference,  Missionary  Bishop  to  Liberia. 
It  was  the  first  inroad  upon  the  Asbury-M'Kendree  idea  of  the 
"General  Superintendency,"  as  the  resignation  of  the  episcopacy 
by  Bishop  Hamline,  at  the  previous  General  Conference,  was  a 
blow  at  its  life-tenure,  and  the  recognition  of  his  doctrine,  that 
the  bishopric  was  a  mere  creature  of  the  General  Conference.  It 
is  a  strange  fact,  also,  that,  notwithstanding  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  was  divided  in  1844  on  the  slavery  question,  the 
North  by  that  act  putting  itself  on  record  that  it  would  not  have 
complicity  with  it  even  to  the  extent  of  allowing  an  involuntary 
slaveholding  Bishop  to  preside  over  their  Conferences,  from  the 
period  of  division  onward  to  the  Civil  War  the  brethren  North 
exerted  every  influence  to  keep  the  border  slave  territory  Confer- 
ences within  their  own  fold;  and  went  farther  by  establishing, 
with  mission  funds,  other  Conferences  in  Kentucky,  Arkansas, 
and  Missouri,  all  then  slave  states.  There  was  method  in  it, 
however,  as  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

The  necrology  of  the  new  Church  for  the  ensuing  quadrennium 
included,  among  early  Keformers,  Eev.  Regan  B.  Collins  of  Ten- 
nessee, obituary  in  official  paper  July  22,  1854.  Also  of  Rev. 
Jesse  H.  Cobb,  August  5,  1854.  William  King  of  Georgetown, 
D.  C,  was  a  stanch  early  Reformer,  cabinet-maker  and  under- 
taker, who  lived  to  an  age  that  made  a  fact  in  his  local  history : 
he  buried  an  entire  generation  of  his  townspeople.  His  unblem- 
ished life  closed  (obituary  July  22,  1854)  wath  a  peaceful  death. ^ 

1  On  his  dying  bed  he  left  with  his  pastor,  Rev.  Dr.  Southerland,  a  testimony  as 
a  protection  to  his  memory  in  view  of  the  frequent  misrepresentations  of  the  early 
Reformers  that  they  had  repented  of  their  course  or  had  returned  to  the  old  Church, 
a  pertinent  casein  Dr.  Jennings  soon  to  be  noticed  in  this  History  ;  he  said  after  a 
calm  review  of  the  past,  "  With  my  present  light  in  these  last  hours  of  life  I  would 
do  just  what  I  did  were  it  to  go  over  again."  See  Baltimore  official  paper,  p.  4, 
January  15,  1887. 


DECEASE  OF  REV.  DR.  JENNINGS 


39T 


On  the  19th  of  October,  1854,  the  whole  Church  was  thrown  into 
mourning  over  the  demise  of  Rev.  Samuel  Kennedy  Jennings, 
M.D.  He  was  born  in  Essex  County,  N.  J.,  a  state  wliich  has 
produced  a  number  of  the  eminent  Reformers,  June  6,  1771.  He 
was  of  Scotch  Presbyterian  lineage,  well  born,  with  every  ad- 
vantage of  early  education,  and  a  graduate  of  Rutgers  College, 
in  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  with  high  honors,  1790.  He  removed 
with  his  father's  family  to  Virginia,  where  he  studied  medicine 
and  entered  upon  its  practice.  When  about  twenty-three  years 
of  age  he  was  thoroughly  converted  under  the  close  conversation 
of  Heath,  a  Methodist  itinerant,  of  which  there  is  detailed  nar- 
ration, as  well  as  much  interesting  matter,  which  space  forbids 
introduction  here,  in  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  60-89.  After 
useful  residence  as  physician  and  preacher  in  New  London, 
Lynchburg,  and  Norfolk,  Va.,  he  came  to  Baltimore,  and  settled 
for  a  life-work,  in  the  spring  of  1817,  being  then  forty-six  years 
of  age.  His  ministry  here  as  a  local  elder  has  scarcely  a  parallel. 
No  minister  was  ever  more  popular,  his  congregations  crowded 
and  overcrowded  whenever  he  preached,  and  great  revivals  oc- 
curred under  him.  As  a  writer,  he  also  excelled,  having  a  lucid, 
pointed,  and  logical  style.  As  has  already  been  found,  through 
the  current  of  this  History,  he  was  a  foremost  writer  for  the 
Western  Repository  and  the  Mutual  Rights.  In  1831  he  published 
his  "Exposition  of  the  Controversy  of  1827-30,"  an  octavo  of  247 
pages,  and  in  1846  the  fruit  of  his  old  age,  "A  Compendium  of 
Medical  Science."  He  was  an  unremitting  writer,  contributing 
to  the  medical  journals  and  other  periodicals.  As  a  Reformer, 
his  record  has  been  already  given  in  these  pages,  —  in  its  faith 
he  lived,  labored,  and  died.  In  the  sketch  of  Dr.  Whitehead,  as 
found  in  an  appendix  to  the  first  volume,  the  promise  was  made 
to  point  out  the  remarkable  parallels  in  the  two  men.  Both  of 
them  were  Methodist  reformers ;  both  were  expelled  from  the  Soci- 
ety and  Church,  for  opinions'  sake;  both  were  physicians  as  well 
as  preachers ;  both  were  biographers  of  the  chief  leaders  of  English 
and  American  Methodism,  Whitehead  writing  the  only  reliable 
"Life  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley,"  and  Jennings  appointed  by 
the  Baltimore  Conference,  in  1817,  to  write  the  "  Life  of  Bishop 
Asbury";  both  of  them  were  persecuted  and  traduced  for  this 
work,  the  latter  by  reason  of  it  never  completed,  as  explained  in 
the  "Exposition";  while  in  minor  particulars  the  likeness  is 
striking.  As  a  professional  teacher  he  was  also  eminently  suc- 
cessful.   In  1818  he  was  elected  President  of  Asbury  College  of 


398 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFOBM 


Baltimore,  on  the  recommendation  of  Bishop  Soule.  During  its 
brief  career  it  exceeded  in  its  progress,  perliaps,  any  institution 
in  this  country.  For  more  than  twenty  years  he  held  professor- 
ships in  the  Washington  Medical  College  of  Baltimore.  In 
addition  to  all  these  pursuits,  he  commanded  a  large  medical 
practice,  which  he  continued  to  within  about  ten  years  of  his 
death.  In  1845  he  removed  to  Alabama,  that  he  might  be  with 
his  children ;  all  of  whom  were  worthy  of  their  ancestry,  but  none 
of  whom  now  survive.  While  in  the  South  he  was  stricken  with 
paralysis,  which  greatly  enfeebled  him  in  body  and  mind.  In 
1853  he  returned  to  his  loved  Baltimore.  Within  a  year,  while 
taking  one  of  his  accustomed  walks  along  Baltimore  Street,  he 
had  a  second  and  fatal  attack  of  paralysis,  and  was  removed  to  the 
home  of  his  son-in-law,  Dr.  Owings,  where,  after  lingering  six 
days  in  a  state  of  insensibility,  he  passed  away,  as  noted.  His 
obsequies  took  place  from  St.  John's  church,  Liberty  Street, 
the  sermon  being  by  Thomas  H.  Stockton,  then  associate  pastor 
with  Eev.  Dr.  Webster.  It  was  a  masterful  effort  of  this  prince 
of  preachers,  a  printed  copy  of  which  is  in  the  writer's  collection. 
His  remains  were  removed  to  Howard  County,  Md.,  where,  in 
the  family  lot  of  his  kindred,  he  was  laid  to  rest  between  the 
graves  of  his  first  and  second  companions.  These  graves  are 
unmarked,  so  that  his  own  is  no  longer  distinguishable  from  his 
kindred  dust,  but  his  memory  is  imperishable,  and  his  record  on 
high. 

During  his  last  years,  one  of  his  pathetic  utterances  was,  "  I 
am  nothing;  I  never  was  much,  but  now  I  am  nothing!"  but, 
rallying,  he  added,  "  But  I  hope  to  live  forever !  "  and  then,  with 
tears  of  grateful  emotion,  "Thank  God!  I  expect  to  live  forever." 
Shameful  to  relate,  the  grass  was  not  yet  green  upon  his  grave, 
when  the  tongue  of  slander  began  to  gnaw  at  his  spotless  name. 
Dr.  Abel  Stevens,  writing  from  Baltimore,  gave  currency  to  the 
statement  that  prior  to  his  decease  Dr.  Jennings  had  returned  to 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  was  promptly  denied  through 
the  official  paper,  and  this  brought  a  retraction,  with  honorable 
apology,  from  Dr.  Stevens,  as  a  Christian  gentleman.  But,  in 
1886,  Dr.  A.  W.  Cummins  of  the  old  Church  published  "The 
Early  Schools  of  Methodism,"  in  which  he  declared,  p.  92,  on  the 
authority  of  Eev.  Isaac  P.  Cook,  local  elder  of  the  old  Church, 
resident  in  Baltimore,  that  Dr.  Jennings  had  "  regretted  his  sev- 
erance from  our  Church  as  the  mistake  of  his  life,"  while  on  his 
dying  bed.    It  fell  under  the  eye  of  the  writer,  then  editor  of  the 


BRIEF  OBITUARY  MENTIONS 


399 


official  paper,  and,  after  careful  investigation  from  still  living 
witnesses  and  the  facts  of  his  decease,  he  addressed  an  open  letter 
to  Dr.  Cummins  (see  Methodist  Protestanty  p.  4,  January  15, 
1887),  refuting  this  second  slander;  which  he  acknowledged 
personally  and  promised  to  make  the  correction,  as  requested, 
through  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate^  as  the  only  medium 
that  would  reach  the  readers  of  his  book ;  but  he  afterward  de- 
clined to  make  any  amends.  It  was  conduct  in  contrast  with 
Dr.  Stevens.^ 

Rev.  Samuel  Cash  of  Kentucky,  Reformer,  obituary  January 
20,  1855.  Rev.  Nathaniel  Gage  of  New  York  and  Vermont 
Conference,  Reformer,  obituary  March  3,  1855.  Rev.  Samuel 
Haslett,  Pittsburgh  Conference,  Reformer,  May  14,  1855. 
Thomas  Jacobs,  father  of  Rev.  Charles  Jacobs  of  Maryland  Con- 
ference, Reformer,  June  9,  1855.  Rev.  Anthony  Spaur,  Virginia, 
aged  eighty  years,  Reformer,  October  6,  1855.  Rev.  John  W. 
Porter,  Reformer  of  Maryland,  November  3,  1855,  Rev.  William 
Perkins  of  Pennsylvania,  Reformer,  February  2,  1856.  Rev. 
Jacob  Hoopman,  local  Reformer  of  Maryland,  June  7,  1856. 
Rev.  Matthew  Nelson  of  Kentucky,  Reformer,  August  3,  1856. 
Rev.  Crawley  Pinney,  M.D.,  of  Virginia,  Reformer,  September 
14,  1856.  Rev.  James  Meek,  M.D.,  of  Alabama,  early  Reformer, 
obituary  March  1,  1857.  Rev.  Ira  E.  Norman  of  North  Caro- 
lina, Reformer,  August  1,  1857.    Rev.  William  Morgan,  local 

1  It  sometimes  happens  that  there  is  a  clew  to  these  misrepresentations.  In  the 
case  of  Dr.  Stevens  it  was  hased  upon  the  fact  that  one  of  Dr.  Jennings's  sons,  a 
physician  and  local  elder  in  the  Church  resided  in  Alabama,  but  in  a  county  in 
which  the  Church  had  no  organization,  and  on  the  recommendation  of  his  father 
he  united  with  the  nearest  M.  E.  Church,  South.  Dr.  Jennings,  like  McCaine,  had 
a  soul  too  large  for  petty  prejudices.  Their  difference  was  not  with  Methodism, 
but  with  Episcopacy,  and  the  hierarchy  of  American  Methodism ;  hence  in  like 
circumstances  both  recommended  their  children  to  unite  with  the  mother  Church, 
rather  than  be  unchurched,  or  in  one  not  Methodistic  in  doctrine  and  usage.  In 
the  case  of  Dr.  Cummins  no  such  clew  can  be  found.  It  is  simply  impossible  that 
his  statement  should  have  been  true,  but  something  may  have  passed  between 
Dr.  Jennings  when  feeble  in  intellect  from  disease,  and  Rev.  Isaac  P.  Cook,  who 
for  some  years  before  his  death  was  mentally  unreliable  from  softening  of  the 
brain,  that  the  latter  misconstrued.  There  is  something  so  patronizing  in  the 
air  of  Dr.  Cummins  in  retailing  this  slander,  and  of  mock  commiseration  in  Dr. 
Cook,  as  reported  by  Dr.  Cummins,  that  his  exact  words  demand  quotation :  "  The 
truth  of  history  requires  another  item,  furnished  by  Dr.  Cook  of  Dr.  Jennings; 
in  the  radical  controversy  of  1828  he  was  expelled  from  our  Church  and  adhered 
to  the  seceders.  On  his  dying  bed  he  regretted  his  severance  from  our  Church  as 
the  mistake  of  his  life!  This  seems  not  to  have  shaken  the  confidence  of  Dr. 
Cook  in,  or  lessened,  his  admiration  of  Dr.  Jennings."  Verily,  the  sainted  Jen- 
nings is  under  obligation  to  these  clerical  gentlemen. 


400 


niSrORY  OF  METHODIST  REFOBM 


Reformer  of  Maryland,  October  10,  1857.  E-ev.  Hayman  Bailey 
of  Mississippi,  Reformer,  November  21, 1857.  Rev.  A.  B.  Lucas, 
November  21, 1857.  In  1857  Rev.  Reddick  Horn,  early  Reformer 
in  the  West,  conspicuous  for  his  devotion  and  fidelity,  passed  to 
his  reward,  in  Nebraska,  February  17,  1858.  Too  much  could  not 
be  said  of  him. 

In  addition  to  these,  heaven  claimed,  during  this  quadrennium, 
the  following  distinguished  brethren:  Rev.  John  S.  Reese,  M.D., 
the  eldest  of  four  preacher  brothers,  was  born  May  15,  1790,  in 
Harford  County,  Md.,  and  in  his  youth  united  with  the  old 
Church.  July  7,  1819,  was  licensed  to  preach,  ordained  deacon 
a  few  years  later  by  Bishop  George.  He  was  graduated  from 
Washington  College  as  doctor  of  medicine,  about  1820,  and  en- 
tered upon  the  practice  with  flattering  prospects.  He  took  an 
active  and  prominent  part  in  Reform,  and  was  one  of  the  eleven 
Expelled  in  Baltimore,  in  1827.  Feeling  his  call  to  preach  as 
paramount,  and  realizing  that  the  Associated  Methodist  churches 
needed  ministerial  service,  he  united  with  the  Maryland  Confer- 
ence at  its  first  session,  in  1829.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Gen- 
eral Convention  of  1830,  and  most  of  the  General  Conferences 
for  years  after,  and  was  repeatedly  elected  President  of  the  Mary- 
land Conference.  In  all  these  relations  his  chief  characteristic 
as  a  wise,  sagacious,  and  prudent  counsellor  was  exhibited.  His 
pulpit  abilities  were  much  above  mediocre,  and,  at  times,  at 
camp-meetings  and  other  occasions,  he  rose  to  the  height  of  a 
rare  eloquence.  His  domestic  necessities  compelled  retirement 
from  the  active  work  earlier  than  he  wished.  In  1852  he  was 
called  by  the  Standing  District  Committee  to  the  presidency,  to 
fill  out  the  term  of  Rev.  William  Collier,  resigned.  Reelected 
by  the  ensuing  Annual  Conference,  he  continued  to  fill  the  posi- 
tion until  his  illness,  which  began  in  October,  1854;  pneumonia 
developed,  after  some  months  of  confinement  to  his  room,  and, 
on  February  14,  1855,  he  triumphantly  passed  away.  On  the 
16th  his  obsequies  took  place  at  East  Baltimore  station,  partici- 
pated in  by  a  number  of  leading  ministers  and  laymen  j  and  his 
remains  were  deposited  in  Baltimore  cemetery,  where  also  now 
repose  those  of  his  three  brothers  in  the  flesh  and  in  the  gospel. 
Among  his  dying  utterances  was  the  declaration,  "My  body  is 
miserably  broken  by  disease,  but  my  soul  is  free.  Disease  cannot 
touch  that."  When  speechless,  he  laid  his  hand  upon  his  heart 
and,  in  a  well-known  gesture,  waved  it  heavenward.  The  funeral 
sermon  was  preached  by  Rev.  S.  B.  Southerland,  D.J)-,  a  bosom 


JOHN  S,  REESE,  MoGEUEE,  AND  MgCAINE  401 


friend,  of  which  large  extracts  may  be  found,  as  well  as  other 
interesting  matter,  in  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  193-205. 

Abner  McGehee  of  Alabama,  obituary  March  3,  1855.  He  was 
devoted  to  the  principles  of  Reform  from  an  early  period,  a  devout 
man,  successful  in  business,  and  generous  in  gifts  to  religious 
enterprises,  and,  conspicuously,  to  the  Church  of  his  choice.  He 
contributed  $10,000  to  the  proposed  college  at  Eobinson  Springs, 
and,  also,  $10,000  to  the  Samaritan  E'und  of  the  Annual  Confer- 
ence; but,  being  in  the  West  Point  Kailroad  stock,  these  sub- 
scriptions subsequently  greatly  depreciated.  He  was  the  father 
of  the  Alabama  branch  of  the  Bible  Society;  and  so  good  an 
authority  as  Eev.  A.  A.  Lipscomb  estimated  his  charitable  con- 
tributions as  aggregating  during  his  life  $100,000.  He  lived  an 
irreproachable  life,  and  died  a  peaceful  death. 

Rev.  Alexander  McCaine  departed  this  life  at  the  residence  of 
his  daughter,  Mrs.  James  M.  Brett,  in  Augusta,  Ga.,  on  Sabbath 
morning,  June  1,  1856,  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  being 
born  in  Dublin,^  Ireland,  in  1768.  He  was  educated  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  priesthood  ^  early  in  life.  He  emigrated  to  this 
country  in  the  twentieth  year  of  his  age,  reaching  Charleston, 
S.  C,  in  1878.  Here  he  came  under  the  ministry  of  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Hammett,  heretofore  mentioned,  one  of  Dr.  Coke's  mis- 
sionaries, and  experienced  a  change  of  heart,  Methodistically 
understood,  and  henceforth  devoted  himself  to  its  ministry.  As- 
bury  became  acquainted  with  him,  and,  struck  with  his  superior 
education  and  attainments,  eagerly  put  him  forward;  but  it  was 
not  until  ten  years  later  that  he  was  received  into  the  Confer- 
ence, in  1797.  These  pages  have  already  exhibited  how  large 
a  place  he  occupied  in  his  affection  and  confidence.  In  1806 
he  retired  from  the  itinerancy,  having  been  Asbury's  travel- 
ling companion  for  a  year  or  two  meantime,  in  order  that  he 
might  educate  his  family;  but,  in  1815,  having  lost  his  wife,  he 
reentered  the  itinerancy  on  the  urgency  of  Asbury  offering  him 
choice  of  stations;  and  so  continued  until  1821,  when  he  finally 
retired,  residing  in  Baltimore  and  devoting  himself  to  school- 
teaching.    His  personal  characteristics  were  all  remarkable. 

1  There  seems  to  be  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  these  facts.  Rev.  A.  G. 
Brewer,  who  knew  McCaine  intimately,  alleges  that  he  had  them  "  from  his  own 
mouth."  Whereas  Rev.  S.  E.  Norton,  who  was  also  intimate  with  him,  and 
preached  his  funeral  sermon,  alleges  in  an  obituary  that  he  was  born  in  Tipperary 
county,  and  was  educated  for  the  Church  of  England  priesthood.  McCaine  was 
indifferent  to  these  early  events,  so  his  birthday  is  unknown,  and  the  year  in  some 
doubt. 

VOL.  II  —  2  B 


402 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Standing  six  feet  four  inches  in  his  stockings,  erect,  and  well 
proportioned,  with  a  finely  developed  head  and  classic  features, 
he  was  an  Agamemnon  among  his  peers  in  the  ministry.    As  a 
preacher,  he  was  preeminent,  his  intellectual  equipment  and 
mastery  of  theology,  supplemented  by  wide  attainments  and  ver- 
satility of  gifts,  gave  him  a  command  over  audiences,  as,  with 
these  weapons  and  a  recognized  spiritual  power,  he  sent  home 
the  unadulterated  gospel :  Christ  and  Him  crucified.    Of  indomi- 
table will,  clear  convictions,  honest  to  the  core,  despising  shams 
and  makeshifts,  his  naturally  impetuous  nature  carried  him  for- 
ward like  a  torrent  in  defence  of  the  truth  as  he  saw  it.  An 
excess  of  impetuosity  was  his  one  infirmity,  and  laid  him  open  at 
times  to  the  cynical  criticisms  of  his  enemies  and  the  regretful 
deprecation  of  his  friends.    As  a  writer  and  critic,  these  pages 
have  given  abundant  evidence.    Aroused  from  his  quiescent  loy- 
alty to  Methodist  Episcopacy  by  the  action  of  Soule  and  the 
General  Conference  of  1820,  he  set  to  investigating  the  subject 
with  results  that  made  him  at  once  the  most  feared  and  hated  of 
the  Reformers  of  1827-30,  proving  himself  more  than  a  match 
for  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  as  a  controversial  strategist,  and  of 
Dr.  John  Emory,  as  an  apt  and  well-furnished  dialectician.  If 
this  be  still  claimed  as  a  moot,  let  posterity  decide  it  by  reference 
to  their  respective  extant  polemical  productions  anent  the  contro- 
versy inseparably  linked  with  their  names.    The  challenge  has 
often  been  made  and  is  here  repeated  with  deliberate  confidence. 
It  was  not  until  past  eighty  years  of  age  that  he  finally  retired 
from  the  field  as  writer  and  critic,  spending  his  closing  years 
quietly  with  his  devoted  daughter.    During  these  years  he  seemed 
reserved  to  the  casual  visitor;  but  it  was  his  intellectual  pre- 
eminence that  isolated  him,  surviving,  as  he  did,  nearly  all  of  his 
generation.    As  Rev.  Dr.  Norton  aptly  said  in  his  funeral  dis- 
course :  "  Men  of  intense  thought  are  not  always  good  companions. 
Lions  go  not  in  herds.    The  eagle  soars  alone."    His  mental 
poise  remained  to  the  last;  only  a  few  months  before  his  decease 
he  published  a  series  of  twelve  articles  on  "The  Catholic  Issue," 
fresh  and  vigorous  as  in  his  palmy  days.    Nine  weeks  prior  to 
his  death  he  began  to  fail,  experiencing  something  of  an  apo- 
plectic attack ;  but  he  rallied,  and  a  few  days  after  preached  his 
last  sermon.    He  then  took  to  his  bed,  and  for  a  month  or  more 
comforted  his  friends  with  his  pious  confidence,  often  repeating 
those  spiritual  hymns:  "Vital  spark  of  heavenly  flame,"  "Not 
a  cloud  doth  arise,"  "Jesus  can  make  a  dying  bed."    To  an  in- 


jREV.  CHARLES  AVERY  OF  PITTSBURGH  403 


quiry  of  his  daughter  if  he  knew  her,  he  answered,  "  I  shall  know 
you  forever."  Hearing  him,  as  he  sank  into  death,  say,  as  she 
thought,  "  happy !  "  she  asked  him  if  that  was  the  word,  to  which 
he  nodded  assent.  At  intervals  she  caught  from  his  lips :  "  hope 
—  home  —  golden  city."  June  3,  1856,  his  obsequies  took  place 
in  St.  James  Methodist  Episcopal  church.  South,  as  there  was  no 
Eeform  church  in  the  town,  and  was  largely  attended;  Kev.  S. 
E.  Norton  of  the  Alabama  Conference,  of  which  McCaine  died  a 
member,  preaching  the  sermon,  a  copy  of  which  is  now  before  the 
writer.  For  other  interesting  matter  see  Colhouer's  "Founders," 
pp.  90-119,  barring  a  few  errors  corrected  in  this  sketch.^ 

Eev.  Charles  Avery  departed  this  life  January  17,  1858.  Born 
in  Westchester  County,  N.  Y.,  December  10,  1784,  he  embraced 
religion  in  his  youth  and  united  with  the  old  Church  in  New 
York  City;  soon  felt  a  call  to  preach,  but  contented  himself  with 
a  local  relation,  realizing  that  he  had  business  capacity  that 
would  enable  him  to  be  useful  as  a  philanthropist.  In  1812  he 
married  and  removed  to  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  where  he  amassed  his 
wealth  in  the  drug,  the  cotton-mill,  and  the  copper-mining  enter- 
prises. His  benevolence  was  early  exhibited,  and  continued 
through  life  with  a  lavish  hand.  His  connection  with  the  Ee- 
form movement  has  already  been  recited.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
first  Union  Society  of  that  city,  and  elected  to  the  General  Con- 
ventions of  1827,  1828,  and  1830,  also  of  the  General  Conferences 
of  1834  and  1838.  He  was  active  and  useful  as  an  unstationed 
minister.    His  special  trait,  as  wealth  increased,  was  liberality. 

1  It  is  most  regrettable  that  a  score  of  years  after  McCaine's  death,  and  that 
of  his  compeers  in  Reform,  Methodist  Episcopal  writers  insist  upon  rehashing 
the  old  slanders  and  misrepresentations  against  them.  In  1876,  Rev.  Dr.  Porter 
issued  his  "  Compendium  of  Methodism,"  in  which  he  says  of  the  Reform  periodi- 
cals: "  Indeed  it  was  an  abusive  concern,  and  it  became  obvious  enough  that  no 
person  was  fit  to  belong  to  the  church  who  would  patronize  it,"  i.e.  Mutual 
Rights.  And  Rev.  Dr.  J.  M.  Bolaud,  writing  in  the  JYashville  Christian  Advocate, 
in  1876,  says  of  McCaine  that  he  "wrote  a  rehash  of  all  his  falsehoods  against 
Episcopal  Methodism,  and  called  it  'A  Defence  of  the  Truth,'  etc.  This  book 
fell  from  the  press  stillborn,  etc.  If  such  writers  as  McCaine  and  Cobbett  are  to 
be  received  as  authority,  then  whose  church  or  personal  character  is  safe  in  this 
land?  "  The  excuse  for  such  men  is  that  they  are  mere  echoes  of  Bond,  Emory, 
and  others,  no  care  being  taken  to  investigate  for  themselves.  Within  the  score 
of  years  since  1876  there  has  been  some  abatement  of  this  rancorous  treatment. 
The  writer  of  this  "  History  of  Reform,"  would  fain  hope  that  its  circulation 
among  them,  if  that  be  possible,  will  do  something  toward  enlightening  their 
ignorance  and  mending  their  manners.  If  in  these  pages  he  has  in  anything 
fallen  into  the  bad  example,  he  is  willing  to  blot  it  on  discovery.  Dr.  Stevens, 
just  elected  editor  of  the  J^eio  York  Advocate,  gave  respectful  notice  of  McCaine's 
death,  but  slurs  the  Reform  movement. 


404 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


In  addition  to  numerous  gifts  during  his  life,  the  larger  sums 
being  $20,000  to  the  Preachers'  Aid  Society  of  the  Pittsburgh 
Conference,  and  $5000  to  each  of  the  three  churches  of  Pitts- 
burgh and  Allegheny,  and  $25,000  to  Oberlin  College,  Ohio,  and 
the  same  sum  to  Avery  College,  Allegheny  City,  numerous  smaller 
sums  under  $500  need  not  be  enumerated.  His  estate  at  death 
was  found  to  be  worth  about  $800,000,  after  having  given  away 
in  life,  maybe,  an  equal  sum.  As  he  had  no  children,  all  of  it, 
save  $150,000  to  relatives  and  friends  and  special  bequests,  about 
$416,000,  he  left  to  residuary  legatees,  to  be  equally  divided 
between  the  American  Missionary  Association,  "  for  the  purpose 
of  disseminating  the  gospel  of  Christ  among  the  colored  tribes 
of  Africa,"  and  to  a  perpetual  fund,  the  interest  to  be  "  applied 
to  the  education  and  elevation  of  the  colored  people  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada."  Out  of  it  normal  schools  have  been  insti- 
tuted for  their  use  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Virginia,  North  Caro- 
lina, Kentucky,  and  Canada.  He  was  an  abolitionist  from  honest 
convictions,  and  was  respected  in  his  views,  as,  without  trucu- 
lence  of  language,  he  expressed  his  convictions  and  proved  his 
practical  benevolence  more  in  deeds  than  in  words  in  behalf  of 
the  colored  race.  The  writer  was  once  introduced  to  him,  and 
found  a  tall,  well-proportioned  man,  inclined  to  corpulence,  of 
regular  features,  bright  gray  eyes,  dark  auburn  hair,  and  an  open 
countenance  that  fairly  beamed  with  kindness  and  charity.  His 
death  was  full  of  hope,  peace,  and  triumph.  Being  asked  by  his 
pastor.  Rev.  John  Cowl,  D.D.,  if  he  had  any  message  for  his 
brethren,  he  murmured  the  characteristic  answer,  "The  tree  is 
known  by  its  fruit,"  the  rule  of  his  own  life.  As  to  his  experi- 
ence, he  said,  "My  hopes  are  as  immutable  as  the  promises  and 
attributes  of  God."  He  was  buried  from  his  home  in  Allegheny 
City,  and  was  laid  to  rest  in  Allegheny  cemetery;  a  monument 
devised  by  his  executors  covering  his  remains,  at  a  cost  of 
$18,000.^ 

The  writer  cannot  forbear  the  reflection  that  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  in  its  current  history,  has  had  but  few  wealthy 
laymen,  for  the  reason  that  such  men  do  not  unite  with  numeri- 
cally small  denominations;  and,  if  grown  within  one  of  them, 
though  it  may  stand  for  the  noblest  principles,  secular,  social, 
and  other  worldly  interests  pull  them  out  of  it  as  they  come  to 

1  For  further  particulars,  see  Bassett's  "  History  "  and  Colhoner's  "  Founders." 
Also  Rev,  Dr.  John  Scott's  "  Fifty  Years  in  the  Ministry,"  etc.,  twelvemo  volume, 
hereafter  more  frequently  cited. 


HON,  P.  B.  HOPPER  OF  MAliYLANB 


405 


financial  consequence.  This  Church  has  had  to  deplore  hundreds 
of  such  instances;  and  it  adds  to  the  marvel  of  sucli  material  in- 
crease as  it  has  made,  thus  handicapped  by  a  membership,  as  a 
rule,  poor  in  this  world's  goods,  if  rich  in  faith.  Under  the 
furthering  providence  of  God  the  Church  has  been  preserved  and 
perpetuated  by  its  principles,  its  personal  manhood,  and  its  heroic 
devotion  to  ecclesiastical  rights.  Charles  Avery  was  not  one  of 
the  class  of  wealthy  men  who  barter  their  principles  for  social 
preferment  and  churchly  ambitions.  And  this  reflection  accounts 
for  the  anomalous  fact  that  to-day  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Methodist  Protestant  laymen  in  sentiment  in  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  The  reasons  for  it  are  obvious,  if  not  always 
creditable. 

Hon.  Philemon  B.  Hopper  departed  this  life  on  the  Sabbath, 
March  28,  1858.  He  was  born  in  Queen  Anne's  County,  Md., 
January  23,  1791.  His  parents  were  Methodists,  and  their  house 
a  preaching-place  until  the  erection  of  the  church  in  Centreville. 
He  was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting  near  Chestertown,  in  1810, 
and  at  once  united  with  the  old  Church.  Being  an  educated 
young  man,  he  was  put  in  charge  of  a  colored  class  as  leader,  and 
he  bore  testimony  that  some  of  the  happiest  hours  of  his  life 
were  "  spent  in  endeavoring  to  teach  and  encourage  this  unfortu- 
nate race  of  people."  He  was  at  the  time  a  young  lawyer  of 
promise  at  the  bar.  He  was  soon  licensed  to  preach,  and,  as  a 
preacher,  though  his  preparation  was  confined  to  a  few  notes 
thrown  together,  and  these  not  taken  into  the  pulpit,  he  depended 
fully  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  moment,  and  certain  signs  in 
his  congregation  he  interpreted  as  guides  to  what  he  should  say; 
and,  looking  for  immediate  results,  he  was  often  highly  effective 
in  revivals  and  conversions.  He  had  great  confidence  in  the  old- 
time  methods  and  pursued  them  to  the  end.  He  was  the  leader 
and  inspiration  of  the  great  revival  in  the  Easton  church  in 
the  midsummer  of  1842,  and  a  part  of  the  fruit  of  that  meeting 
was  Kev.  T.  D.  Valiant  and  Rev.  Josiah  Clift,  and  Mrs.  Tamsey 
A.  Beese,  nee  Hughlett.  Over  a  hundred  souls  were  converted. 
He  established  a  preaching-place  at  Hall's  Crossroads,  some  six 
miles  from  his  residence,  near  Centreville,  where  wonderful  dis- 
plays of  saving  grace  occurred.  His  sterling  integrity  soon  won 
for  him  a  large  legal  practice ;  he  was  elected  to  the  legislature 
of  the  State  and  filled  other  responsible  positions.  In  1826  he 
was  appointed  to  the  bench  of  his  district,  and  afterward  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  a  member  of  the  court,  suggesting  to  him 


406  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


that  it  would  not  be  in  accordance  with  the  dignity  of  his  new 
position  to  continue  to  preach.  He  made  prompt  answer,  that  if 
called  on  to  decide  between  the  office  and  preaching  he  should 
resign  the  office.  In  1850  the  judgeship  was  made  elective  by 
the  new  constitution;  but  so  popular  was  he  that  there  was  no 
practical  opposition  to  him,  and  he  was  elected  by  the  suffrages 
of  his  constituents  for  ten  years,  eight  of  which  he  lived  to  fill. 
The  manumission  of  his  forty  slaves  has  already  been  noticed  as 
a  behest  of  his  individual  conscience ;  but  he  never  assumed  to 
judge  for  others,  or  indulged  in  vituperation  of  his  neighboring 
slaveholders  and  fellow  Christians.  As  a  Methodist  Reformer  he 
was  pronounced  and  uncompromising.  He  became  a  subscriber 
to  the  Wesleyan  Repository,  at  the  instance  of  Rev.  Ezekiel  Cooper. 
He  was  confirmed  in  these  views,  as  he  underwrites  himself,  by 
Thomas  Ware,  Lawrence  McComb,  and  James  Smith  of  the  trav- 
elling preachers  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference,  then  including 
the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland,  and  adds:  "I  had  no  intention  to 
unite  in  forming  a  new  Church  in  my  first  advocacy  of  Reform, 
nor  do  I  believe  that  any  of  the  original  Reformers  had  the  most 
remote  expectation  of  doing  so.  But  the  expulsion  of  Revs. 
Messrs.  Dorsey  and  Pool,  and,  afterward,  the  expulsion  of  the 
ministers  and  laymen  in  Baltimore,  left  us  no  alternative,  except 
a  dishonorable  course  toward  the  expelled."  This  only  confirms 
the  general  testimony  at  the  time,  and  should,  with  honorable 
opponents,  acquit  them  of  the  stigma  of  voluntary  secession,  or 
ecclesiastical  ambition  to  that  end;  but  to  this  day  the  libel  is 
repeated  by  the  old  Church  chroniclers.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
early  Conventions  of  the  new  Church,  and  often  representative 
to  the  Annual  and  General  Conferences.  He  was  a  prolific  writer 
for  the  Church  paper,  on  a  variety  of  subjects,  under  the  familiar 
signature  "P.  B.  H.,"  rivalling  those  of  "B.  H.  R.,"  heretofore 
noticed,  in  popular  interest  and  frequency.  His  house  had  an 
open  door  to  all  itinerants,  and  he  continued  universally  loved 
and  respected.  In  the  autumn  of  1857  he  began  to  fail,  but  he 
lingered  until  March  28,  1858.  His  natural  moods  were  from 
elation  to  depression,  the  latter  prevailing,  from  physical  causes, 
during  much  of  his  illness.  But  a  short  time  before  his  departure 
his  son,  William  James,  repeated  the  hymn,  "  Away,  my  unbeliev- 
ing fears,"  in  which  he  joined,  and,  coming  to  the  last  two  lines, 
he  raised  his  eyes  and  hands  toward  heaven,  and  said,  with  great 
emphasis :  — 

No,  in  the  strength  of  Jesus,  no  ! 
I  never  will  give  up  my  shield." 


OTHER  DECEASED  WORTHIES 


407 


Afterward  he  said :  "  I  have  a  home,  a  home  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens.  I  have  no  fear  of  death."  His  obsequies 
were  held  in  the  Centreville  church  by  Kev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray  and 
others,  and  his  remains  deposited  in  the  town  cemetery  with  his 
kindred.    (See  Colhouer's  "  Founders,"  pp.  317-324.) 

In  addition  to  these  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant  furnishes 
the  obituaries  ^  of  Rev.  J.  Baker  of  Ohio  Conference,  Reformer, 
June  25,  1856;  Thomas  Barnes,  lay-Reformer  and  brother-in- 
law  to  Asa  Shinn,  January  21,  1857;  Rev.  Jeremiah  Leslie  of 
Ohio,  Reformer,  February  11,  1857;  James  Foster  of  Cincinnati, 
0.,  lay-Reformer,  and  delegate  to  four  General  Conferences, 
November  11,  1857;  Rev.  D.  D.  Hughes,  Reformer  of  1830, 
May  5,  1858. 

1  In  these  and  all  occurring  Instances,  when  "Obituary"  is  named  the  date 
given  is  of  it  and  not  the  death.   Otherwise  the  date  is  of  the  decease. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


Dissatisfaction  over  the  division  of  the  Book  Concern,  but  the  Conventional  Con- 
ferences met  and  consummated  the  act  on  both  sides  —  It  was  found  that  it  did 
not  suffice  the  West  and  North  —  Separation  broached ;  acrimonious  discussion  in 
the  papers ;  upsliot  was  the  Cincinnati  Convention  of  1857  and  its  ultimatum  to 
the  East  and  South ;  Some  good  resulted  —  Convention  of  1858  at  Springfield, 
0.  — Current  events  of  the  quadrennium ;  Central  Female  College,  Culloden, 
Ga. ;  North  Hebron  Institute,  Vermont ;  incorporation  of  Tennessee  Confer- 
ence; Southern  Olive  Tree  suspends;  D.  B.  Dorsey,  Sr.'s  "History  "and  what 
came  of  it;  sketch  of  Lynchburg  College  and  final  failure  — Decease  of  Dr.  T. 
E.  Bond  ;  reflections ;  old  issues  revived  in  the  Xevj  York  Christian  Advocate 
and  the  answers  of  Brown,  Hopper,  Dorsey,  and  Stockton,  Sr.  —  Yadkin  Insti- 
tute, North  Carolina;  Board  of  Missions;  Drs.  Brown  and  Scott  in  the  South 
—  Culmination  of  the  slavery  issue. 

The  representatives  of  the  General  Conference  of  1854  were 
not  long  returned  home  before  the  sober  second  thought,  to  a 
number  of  them,  from  the  Xorth  and  West,  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  a  mistake  had  been  made  in  the  division  of  the  Book  Con- 
cern and  the  establishment  of  two  official  papers  under  indepen- 
dent conventional  control.  In  the  East  and  South  there  was 
more  general  acquiescence  with  unity  of  sentiment  on  the  divi- 
sive question  of  slavery;  while  in  the  Xorth  and  West,  though 
the  antislavery  sentiment  was  general,  there  was  an  important 
minority  opposed  to  legislative  and  overt  ecclesiastical  action  of 
a  coercive  complexion  within  the  Church.  This  minority  had  to 
be  overcome,  and  it  cost  struggle  and  loss  to  accomplish  it.  In 
the  Western  Recorder  and  the  official  paper  in  Baltimore  the 
action  was  attacked  and  defended,  from  different  points  of  view, 
from  June  until  Xovember,  when  the  Zanesville  Convention,  as 
provided,  assembled.  It  was  organized  on  the  1st  of  November, 
nine  Conferences  having  elected  delegates,  seventeen  of  whom 
were  present.  The  roster  may  be  found  in  the  Western  paper 
and  Bassett's  "History."  John  Burns  was  elected  President  and 
J.  J.  White,  Secretary.  George  Clancy  and  Jonathan  M.  Flood, 
commissioners  appointed  by  the  General  Conference,  reported  the 
purchase  of  the  Western  Recorder  from  A.  H.  Bassett  for  $1250. 
The  Book  Concern  and  periodical  were  located  for  the  future  at 

408 


GEORGE  NESTOR. 


P.  T.  LAISHLEY. 


CONVENTIONS  OF  CONFEBENCES  ASSEMBLE  409 


Springfield,  0.,  the  title  to  be  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant, 
with  A.  H.  Bassett,  editor.  Upon  investigation,  it  was  found  on 
the  plan  suggested  by  the  General  Conference  that  the  Western 
interest  would  be  entitled  to  receive,  as  their  equitable  share  from 
the  Baltimore  Book  Concern,  $2300,  and  George  Clancy  was  des- 
ignated to  confer  with  it  and  pay  the  money,  on  receipt,  over  to 
a  new  Board  of  Trust.  Nine  trustees  were  elected:  Israel 
Thrapp,  E.  A.  Wheat,  George  Clancy,  A.  H.  Trumbo,  J.  M. 
Flood,  William  Steel,  William  Fish,  D.  A.  Jones,  and  L.  New- 
love.  They  organized  themselves  into  a  Literary  and  Publish- 
ing Society.  The  Convention  designated  another  to  be  called  at 
Springfield  in  November,  1856.  At  the  end  of  the  current  six- 
teenth volume,  in  September,  1855,  the  establishment  was  removed 
to  Springfield,  and  the  paper  appeared,  October  11,  1855,  under 
its  new  title,  with  a  dress  of  new  type,  and  a  subscription  list  of 
twenty-five  hundred.  Meantime,  a  settlement  was  effected  by 
George  Clancy  with  the  Baltimore  Directory,  for  the  sum  of 
$2300  in  cash,  books,  and  promissory  notes.  Eleven  Conferences 
in  all  adhered  to  the  Western  interest.  There  being  some  rumor 
that  the  Convention  might  be  tempted  to  transcend  its  powers, 
the  brethren  were  placed  on  their  guard,  and  confined  the  delib- 
erations to  the  legitimate  call  for  it. 

The  action  of  the  General  Conference  excited  alarm  along  the 
sectional  border.  All  that  section  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference 
lying  in  Western  Virginia  dissented  from  the  adhesion  of  it  to 
the  Springfield  Book  Concern;  and  when  the  Conference  met  at 
Allegheny  City,  Pa.,  September  20,  1854,  it  was  agreed  to  set 
them  off  as  a  separate  body.  Following  the  example,  when  the 
Muskiiigum  Conference  was  set  off,  they  elected  two  presidents. 
Rev.  P.  T.  Laishley  being  named  for  Western  Virginia;  but  as 
only  one  Plan  of  Appointments  was  made,  the  division  can  be 
defined  only  by  the  assessment  made  for  his  support.  This  in- 
cluded Fairmont  station,  Morgantown  circuit,  Evansville,  Phi- 
lippi,  Taylor,  Harrison,  Lewis,  Buchanan,  West  Fork,  Braxton, 
Pocahontas,  Greenbrier,  Jackson,  Freeport,  Randolph  mission, 
Harrisville  and  Tyler  circuit,  Gilmore,  Kentucky,  Fairmont,  and 
Pruntytown.^ 

1  On  October  2,  1855,  the  West  Virginia  Conference  held  its  first  session  at 
Pruntytown,  as  appears  from  the  reported  proceedings  in  the  Baltimore  paper. 
D.  R.  Helmick  was  elected  President,  and  the  following  brethren  appear  in  the 
Plan  of  Appointments:  W.  B.  Bolton,  William  Wragg,  R.  Potts,  R.  J.  Norman, 
J.  C.  Bolton,  D.  H.  Lilly,  J.  E.  Mitchell,  William  Sisk,  George  Nestor,  G.  G.  West- 
fall,  R.  S.  Welch,  John  Clark,  J.  B.  McCormick,  R.  H.  Walker,  J.  S,  Hacker, 


410 


HISTOliY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Pursuant  to  agreement  the  Baltimore  Convention  assembled  at 
West  Baltimore  station,  June  6,  1855,  to  "mature  a  permanent 
plan  for  the  future  management  and  control  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  newspaper  and  Book  Concern."  Hon.  B.  S.  Bibb  was 
elected  President  and  W.  H.  Wills,  Secretary.  The  following 
Conferences  had  elected  delegates  to  the  number  of  eighteen,  of 
whom  twelve  were  present:^  Maryland,  Virginia,  West  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Alabama,  New  Jersey,  Missouri,  Tennessee, 
Arkansas,  Georgia,  and,  subsequently.  South  Carolina  was  in- 
cluded in  the  charter,  making  eleven,  the  same  number  as  adhered 
to  the  Western  Concern.  Pennsylvania  also  became  a  patron  of 
the  Baltimore  paper.  The  Book  Directory  made  a  report  cover- 
ing the  year  since  the  General  Conference.  Tabular  statements 
were  furnished,  from  which  it  is  seen  that  the  circulation  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  was  4209,  not  counting  exchanges,  or  nearly 
as  large  as  was  reported  to  the  General  Conference  of  1854,  but 
few  papers  having  been  discontinued  in  consequence  of  the  official 
recognition  of  the  Western  paper.  Its  financial  condition  differed 
but  little  from  that  of  1854.  A  draft  of  a  charter,  amendatory 
of  that  of  1839,  was  offered  by  George  Vickers,  and  approved. 
It  named  as  directors,  Wesley  Starr,  John  W.  Kichardson,  John 
Coates,  Eobert  B.  Varden,  William  Dulany,  Ebenezer  Strahan, 
and  the  ministers  of  East  and  West  Baltimore  stations  at  the 
time,  ex  officio.  E.  Yeates  Keese  was  unanimously  elected  Editor 
and  Agent,  and  his  salary  fixed  at  $1500.  It  was  resolved  that 
"this  Convention  reciprocates  the  fraternal  sentiments  of  the 
brethren  of  the  Western  Convention,  and  desire  the  perpetuation 
of  the  existing  harmony  between  the  two  institutions."  The 
Convention  adjourned  on  the  7th  of  June,  1855. 

At  the  Illinois  Conference,  in  the  autumn  of  1855,  the  question 
of  the  division  of  the  Book  Concern  was  discussed  and  elicited 
such  a  difference  of  opinion  that  it  refused  to  espouse  either  side, 
but  deferred  its  consideration  to  the  next  Conference.    The  result 

A.  Morrison,  M.  Stewart,  S.  Leslie,  Samuel  Clawson,  A.  D.  Thomas,  P.  T.  Laishley, 
J.  Bolton,  Sr.,  A.  Lister,  W.  M.  Betts,  J.  C.  Haines,  and  J.  Holland.  The  Confer- 
ence determined  to  adhere  to  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern,  and  passed  in  defini- 
tion of  its  position  a  resolution  that  "  the  Conference  will  not  directly  or  indirectly 
interfere  with  the  social  institutions  of  the  States  (to  wit,  slavery),  leaving  their 
management  entirely  to  the  control  of  the  governments  of  the  different  States  in 
which  they  exist."  It  was  offered  hy  P.  T.  Laishley  and  "William  Hamilton. 
John  Clark  had  represented  them  in  the  Baltimore  Convention  of  June  6,  1855. 
The  statistics  showed  38.36  members,  fifty  churches,  and  a  valuation  of  824,850. 

1  The  roster  of  those  elected  and  those  present  may  be  found  in  the  manuscript 
Minutes  preserved  at  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern,  and  now  before  the  writer. 


''PEACEFUL  SEPARATION''  NOW  PROPOSED  411 


gained  of  an  official  paper  coequal  with  the  Baltimore  official  was 
not  satisfactory  to  many  when  other  consequences  were  consid- 
ered. The  pressure  from  without  increased  as  the  antislavery 
tide  rose  higher  and  higher  in  the  West  and  North.  No  such 
tame  position  as  that  of  the  West  Virginia  brethren  would  suffice. 
The  Wesley  an  Methodists  made  inroads  upon  the  people,  and 
there  grew  up  a  demand  for  utter  separation.  The  brethren  in 
the  free  states  were  twitted  upon  their  continued  official  relation 
to  Conferences  in  the  slave  states ;  and  in  the  more  extreme  sec- 
tions some  of  the  Conferences  seriously  decreased  in  numbers 
owing  to  this  cause.  The  wisest  and  most  conservative  men 
yielded  to  the  infection.  In  this  condition  of  affairs  the  second 
Convention  of  delegates,  as  called,  assembled  at  Springfield, 
November  6,  1856,  to  consider  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant 
and  Book  Concern.  Nineteen  were  present  from  seven  Confer- 
ences, and  others  heard  from  by  letter.  The  Convention  again 
elected  John  Burns,  President,  and  J.  J.  White,  Secretary.  The 
report  of  the  Western  Book  Concern  showed  that  extra  expenses 
had  been  incurred  by  moving,  and  the  new  plant,  so  that  there 
was  a  considerable  shortage.  The  editor  and  agent  was  compli- 
mented on  his  management  and  was  reelected  to  the  twofold  posi- 
tion. The  subscription  of  the  Western  paper  claimed  an  increase 
of  550  over  the  last  report,  or  3050. 

And  now  these  brethren  took  up  the  question  of  "  a  peaceful 
separation  "  from  the  East  and  South.  It  was  illegitimate  busi- 
ness, but  a  number  of  the  Conferences  having  instructed  their 
delegates  to  consider  it,  an  advisory  committee  of  one  from  each 
Conference  was  appointed  to  "propose  suitable  action  in  the 
case."  After  much  deliberation  they  reported  through  the  Chair- 
man, Eev.  Samuel  W.  Widney,  a  statement,  with  a  series  of  Ee- 
solves,  the  gist  of  them  being :  "  In  our  opinion,  the  advantages 
derived  from  our  relation  to  the  General  Conference,  as  now  con- 
stituted, are  overbalanced  by  the  disadvantages  arising  from  it," 
and  "  as  we  cannot  hope  for  reasonable  permanent  harmony, "  it 
is  a  question  whether  "  the  peace  and  interests  of  both  the  South- 
ern and  Northern  Conferences  will  not  be  promoted  by  a  peaceful 
separation."  The  several  Conferences  North  and  West  are  recom- 
mended to  "  clothe  their  representatives  with  conventional  powers, 
and  instruct  them  to  meet  in  the  city  of  Cincinnati,  0.,  on  the 
second  Wednesday  of  November,  1857,  and  then  and  there  deter- 
mine whether  they  will  attend  the  General  Conference,  to  be  held 
at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  in  May,  1858,  or  whether  they  will  take 


412 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


measures  for  the  organization  of  a  General  Conference  embracing 
only  Annual  Conferences  opposed  to  the  system  of  American 
slavery."  Sympathetic  cooperation  is  invited  from  any  in  the 
South  who  favor  their  view;  and  that  the  "local  officiary  be  re- 
quested to  call  attention  to  the  action  in  order  to  gather  the 
sentiment  of  the  whole  Church  in  relation  to  the  matter." 

The  report  was  adopted  by  ayes  and  nays,  the  President,  John 
Burns,  alone  recording  his  vote  in  the  negative.  The  Literary 
Society  representing  the  Book  Concern,  at  its  annual  meeting, 
June,  1857,  unanimously  approved  what  was  done,  and  A.  H. 
Bassett  and  J.  M.  Flood  were  appointed  to  draft  a  circular  address 
to  the  West  and  North.  It  ably  sets  forth  a  synoptical  history 
of  the  Church  from  1828  onward,  and  the  conflict  of  sentiment  on 
the  slavery  question,  with  arguments  apologetic  and  justificatory 
of  the  proposed  separation.  It  also  set  forth  evidentially  the 
loss  incurred  in  the  North  particularly,  from  "Vermont  to  Iowa," 
by  reason  of  slavery  and  their  official  connection  with  it.  It 
specified  the  loss  of  the  entire  Champlain  Conference  of  over  five 
hundred  members,  one-half  the  Vermont  and  the  Michigan  Con- 
ferences, and  numerous  declensions  all  over  their  territory.  The 
concluding  paragraph  says,  "We  have  reached  a  crisis."^  It 
was  manifestly  so,  while  there  can  be  no  mistaking  the  meaning 
of  the  action  of  the  Convention.  A  necessity  was  upon  them 
which  had  to  be  met  and  mastered,  or  gradual  disintegration 
would  follow.  It  was  the  same  kind  of  necessity  that  obtained 
in  the  East  and  South,  which  forbade,  with  or  without  General 
Conference  recommendation,  the  publication  of  incendiary  papers 
against  slavery,  fastened  upon  the  territory  within  which  the 
Baltimore  official  paper  circulated  by  civil  laws  no  ecclesiastical 
action  could  abrogate.  The  knotty  problem  with  them  was :  How 
to  separate  and  not  secede.  The  former  they  must  do;  the  latter 
they  repudiated.    It  was  Scylla  or  Charybdis. 

These  proceedings  led  to  a  discussion  in  both  the  official  papers, 
not  without  acrimony.  George  Clancy,  Daniel  Young,  and  others, 
zealously  supported  by  the  editor,  led  off,  defensive  of  the  doings, 
while  John  Burns,  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  Joel  Kice,  a  layman  of 
Illinois,  argued  its  unconstitutionality  with  a  logical  force  that 
made  such  a  position  untenable.  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper,  as  a  con- 
servative, deprecated  the  call  of  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  and 
Dr.  Armstrong  of  Tennessee  showed  that  his  Protest  in  1854  was 
prophetic.    The  Western  paper  for  months  together  contained 

1  See  the  official  papers  and  Bassett's  "  History  "  for  full  text  of  papers,  etc. 


CINCIJSfNATI  CONVENTION  OF  1857 


413 


little  else  but  the  discussion,  the  opposing  Western  writers  find- 
ing cover  in  the  Baltimore  paper.  ^  The  drift  made  it  evident 
that  separation  was  foregone.  William  Collier,  then  pastor  of 
Pittsburgh,  first  church,  an  antislavery  maa  of  prudent  speech, 
even  in  Maryland,  did  much  to  direct  the  storm  by  his  sagacious 
counsels. 

The  upshot  of  the  agitation  was  the  assembling  of  the  Cincin- 
nati Convention  in  the  George  Street  church,  November  11,  1857. 
A  day  of  fasting  and  prayer  had  been  observed  a  short  time  before 
for  wisdom  to  act  advisedly,  and  their  motives  under  a  dominat- 
ing idea  cannot  be  questioned.  Forty  representatives  in  all  from 
fifteen  Annual  Conferences  had  been  elected,  of  whom  twenty -five 
were  in  attendance.  They  had  been  elected  as  members  of  the 
General  Conference  as  well,  —  they  were  here  in  pursuance  of  the 
call  to  determine  whether  they  would  attend  or  not.  It  was  an 
anomalous  condition  of  things.  William  Collier  was  chosen 
President  and  J.  J.  White,  Secretary.  Six  committees  were 
appointed,  and  the  burden  of  business  resolved  itself  into  three 
propositions :  Was  it  their  duty  to  attend  the  General  Conference 
at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  the  ensuing  May  4,  1868;  the  Memorial  to  be 
addressed  the  body  setting  forth  their  grievances ;  and  their  course 
of  action  on  ascertaining  the  decision  of  the  General  Conference. 
On  the  first  proposition  J.  M.  Flood,  for  the  committee,  reported 
a  series  of  resolutions,  in  substance  that  free  discussion  of  sla- 
very would  not  be  allowed  at  Lynchburg,  and  this  destroyed  the 
equality  of  debate;  that  it  was  unnecessary  for  the  North  and 
West  to  be  represented  in  a  body  to  secure  redress ;  that  no  cen- 
sure is  implied  of  any  representatives  of  their  section  who  might 
attend,  and  that  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  to  present  to 
the  General  Conference  their  Memorial.  A.  H.  Bassett,  of  the 
committee  on  the  Memorial,  presented  a  well  written  and  care- 
fully worded  paper  of  considerable  length.  It  sets  forth  their 
grievance  as  antislavery  men,  declares  that  they  do  not  further 
wish  to  reiterate  appeals  for  redress  "  ungrateful,  if  not  insulting, 
to  their  feelings,  much  less  would  we  be  unreasonable  to  make 
demands  of  the  General  Conference,  which  it  is  out  of  the  power 
of  the  body  to  grant."    Then  three  modifications  are  demanded  of 

1  The  Muskingum  Conference  at  its  session  of  October,  1857,  developed  strong 
opposition  to  the  Convention  as  contemplating  separation,  and  the  delegates  were 
elected  against  the  protest  of  a  strong  minority  of  twenty-four.  Palmetto  circuit 
passed  a  resolve  against  separation.  See  Baltimore  paper,  October  24, 1857.  Also 
Quincy  station,  Illinois,  Lancaster  and  Steubensville  stations,  and  other  places. 


414 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  Constitution  and  Discipline:  First,  the  word  "white"  to  be 
struck  from  Article  XI.,  sections  first  and  second.  Second,  the 
third  item  and  annexed  proviso  of  fourth  section,  Article  VII.,  as 
understood  as  insuring  civil  protection  to  slaveholders  and  deal- 
ers. Third,  the  insertion  of  a  clause  making  voluntary  slave- 
holding  and  dealing  a  bar  to  membership  in  the  Church.^  They 
ask  a  release  from  the  obligation  to  attend  one  General  Confer- 
ence, and  that  a  call  be  made  for  a  Convention  to  make  these 
changes,  in  May,  1859.  In  this  case  they  will  await  the  action 
of  the  Annual  Conferences ;  "  but  if  this  General  Conference  shall 
not  see  good  to  adopt  action  necessary  to  remove  our  difficulties, 
we  cannot  conscientiously  consent  to  a  further  continuance  of  our 
ecclesiastical  connection."  They  would  indulge  in  no  reproaches 
and  do  not  assume  to  be  judge  of  their  neighbors.  Signed, 
William  Collier,  President. 

As  to  future  action,  George  Clancy,  for  the  committee,  reported 
a  proposition  for  another  Convention,  to  assemble  at  Springfield, 
0.,  November  10,  1858.  It  sets  forth  that  its  powers  and  objects 
shall  be  to  hear  and  take  such  action  on  the  answer  of  the  General 
Conference  as  may  be  necessary;  in  case  of  its  refusal  to  amend, 
etc.,  to  issue  a  new  edition  of  the  Discipline,  with  the  amend- 
ments and  alterations,  but  to  be  confined  to  those  objectionable 
features  specified;  and  that  said  Convention  shall  have  full  power 
over  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant  and  Book  Concern.  All 
three  papers  were  adopted  with  unanimity,  those  in  the  West  of 
the  representatives  elected  and  opposed  to  the  action  not  attend- 
ing. The  Convention  held  until  the  16th,  a  period  of  five  days, 
much  harmony  prevailed,  and  its  proceedings  were  generally  ap- 
proved in  the  North  and  West.^    George  Brown  was  all  this  time 

1  It  is  in  evidence  of  the  weakness  of  human  nature  and  the  poverty  of  human 
logic  under  stress  of  external  pressure  that  in  the  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E. 
Church  in  1856  this  very  question  was  argued.  The  Baltimore  and  some  other 
border  Conferences  in  slave  territory  adhered  to  the  Church  North,  and  to  save 
another  division  under  extreme  enactments  against  slaveliolders,  etc.,  even  Dr. 
T.  E.  Bond,  the  doughty  champion  of  the  antislavery  party  in  1844,  and  onward, 
said  in  the  Neio  York  Advocate,  which  he  then  edited,  that  if  a  rule  should  be 
enacted  by  that  General  Conference  to  "exclude  all  slaveholders  from  the 
church,  whatever  be  their  condition  or  circumstances,  it  would  become  the  duty 
of  the  border  Conferences  to  disregard  the  rule."  And  Dr.  J.  P.  Durbin,  in  that 
same  General  Conference,  showed  in  a  masterful  speech,  both  from  the  Bible  and 
the  example  of  the  primitive  church,  buttressed  by  expositions  and  comments  of 
the  most  learned  scholars,  "  that  the  apostles  admitted  slaveholders  into  the 
church." 

2  For  the  full  text  of  these  papers  see  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant  of  even 
dates,  and  Bassett's  "  History." 


BOOK  CONCERN  DIVISION  NOT  ''A  PEACE  MEASURE''  415 


absorbed  in  the  tangled  affairs  of  Madison  College,  and  took  no 
part  in  the  Conventions.  Antislavery  in  sentiment,  he  may  speak 
for  himself  as  to  the  matter.  "  I  was  as  certain  as  any  of  them 
that  an  end  of  the  cooperation  of  the  churches  North  and  South 
would  soon  come ;  but  for  a  time  I  did  not  agree  with  them  as  to 
the  manner  of  bringing  it  about.  I  now  believe  [1868]  that  they 
were  right  and  I  was  wrong."  ^ 

The  brethren  of  the  East  and  South,  as  these  several  Conven- 
tions were  held,  each  taking  more  advanced  ground  looking  to 
separation,  were  aroused  from  their  dream  that  the  division  of 
the  Book  Concern  would  be  accepted  North  and  West  as  a  "  peace 
measure."  While  no  better  satisfied  of  its  constitutionality  than 
not  a  few  in  the  other  section,  it  seemed  to  them  the  only  solu- 
tion of  a  vexed  question,  holding  out  a  hope  that  the  connectional 
bond  of  the  Church,  as  a  continental  organization,  might  be  pre- 
served. Two  good  results  were  attained  by  the  property  division 
and  the  antislavery  discussion.  It  saved  the  brethren  from  the 
temptation  to  reenact  the  unseemly  squabble  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  in  1845-50,  denying  the  right  of  the  South  to 
their  equitable  proportion  of  their  Book  Concern.  The  brethren 
North  and  West  were  amicably  allowed  their  equitable  share. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  it  did  not  surcease  the  efforts  after  the 
reunion  of  1877,  to  make  Pittsburgh,  or  the  West,  the  sole  loca- 
tion of  an  official  paper  and  Book  Concern.  Fraternity  suggests 
that  the  evidence  be  reserved  until  challenged.  It  also  provoked 
the  Christian  slaveholders  of  the  South  to  look  after  the  educa- 
tional and  religious  interests  of  the  colored  people.  The  Virginia 
Conference  of  November,  1856,  passed  strong  resolutions  on  the 
subject. 

Recurrence  must  now  be  made  to  the  current  Church  events  of 
the  quadrennium  of  1854-58.  The  General  Conference  of  1854, 
as  part  of  its  incidental  business,  had  adopted  the  English  Wes- 
leyan  Catechism  for  the  use  of  the  Church.  In  a  few  months  an 
edition  was  published  by  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern ;  but  it  did 
not  meet  with  the  favor  of  the  people,  and  soon  fell  into  desue- 
tude. The  Central  Female  College  of  Culloden,  Ga.,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Conference,  elected  Eev.  R.  H.  Ball,  A.M., 
ex-President  of  Madison  College,  President;  and  it  entered  upon 
a  career  that  promised  success.  The  North  Hebron  Institute, 
under  patronage  of  Vermont  and  New  York  Conference,  was  also 
inaugurated  with  a  hopeful  outlook.    At  the  fall  session  of  the 

1  Brown's  "  Itinerant  Life,"  p.  398. 


416  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Tennessee  Conference,  1854,  steps  were  taken,  and  subsequently 
matured,  for  the  incorporation  of  the  body  under  the  State  law 
to  hold  property,  etc.  It  was  a  protective  and  useful  act,  after- 
ward followed  by  the  Pennsylvania,  and  by  the  Maryland  Con- 
ference in  1890.  The  General  Conference  not  being  incorporated,^ 
it  is  the  more  important  that  the  Annual  Conferences  should  be, 
that  there  might  be  some  central  legal  receiver  for  bequests  not 
coming  under  the  specific  direction  of  local  societies  thereof.  In 
this  default  considerable  sums  have  been  lost  to  the  denomination. 
It  was  proposed  to  divide  the  Texas  Conference  into  two  by  a 
line  drawn  through  the  State  from  east  to  west,  and  to  be  called 
"Texas"  and  ''Southern  Texas,"  November,  1854.  T.  H.  Stock- 
ton had  issued  a  volume  of  "Sermons  for  the  People,"  which 
were  so  popular  that  a  fourth  editon  was  demanded.  The  Mis- 
sissippi Conference  was  divided  into  North  and  South  at  the 
session  of  1854.  ^ 

Quite  an  animated  controversy  took  place  in  1855  between  Dr. 
T.  E.  Bond,  of  the  New  York  Advocate,  and  Dr.  Abel  Stevens, 
of  the  Zion's  Herald,  the  latter  having  expressed  liberal  opinions 
as  to  the  Reformers  of  1828  and  lay-representation,  which  the 
former  vigorously  attacked.  Any  charity  toward  the  "  Radicals  " 
excited  the  doughty  "hero  of  a  hundred  battles,"  like  a  red  flag 
flaunted  in  the  face  of  a  fiery  bovine.  It  gave  W.  S.  Stockton  a 
coveted  opportunity  to  review  the  opposite  opinions  of  these 
leaders  in  Methodist  Episcopacy;  in  the  course  of  which  he  justi- 
fied the  Reformers  for  not  accepting  silence  as  the  condition  of 
membership  in  the  old  Church,  on  the  irrefragable  ground  that, 
as  honest  men,  "they  could  hardly,  in  their  own  estimation, 
have  maintained  their  private  virtues,  had  they  not  made  evident 
their  public  virtue  in  efforts  to  reform  the  polity  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church."  The  Southern  Telegraph,  now  the  Southern 
Olive  Tree,  local  paper  of  Georgia  and  adjacent  Conferences,  sus- 
pended publication,  owing  to  financial  embarrassment.  A.  G. 
Brewer  was  its  last  editor.    Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey  announced, 

1  See  action  of  General  Conferences  of  1892  and  1806. 

2  It  was  the  fourteenth  session  of  the  Conference  held  at  Liberty  church,  Lafay- 
ette county,  November  22,  18.54.  The  Plan  of  Appointments  shows  the  division 
as  follows :  South :  P.  H.  Napier,  President ;  C.  P.  Gallespie,  J.  H.  Bounds,  W.  C. 
Pridgeon,  J.  N.  Rieves,  R.  Bankston,  F.  Harman ;  General  Missionary,  Elijah 
Lott.  Other  members  not  named  in  the  hands  of  the  President.  North :  A.  A. 
Houston,  President ;  J.  B.  Spencer,  W.  G.  Bulger,  S.  W.  Montgomery,  Z.  D.  Tatum, 
R.  C.  Jeeter,  M.  Cofer,  M.  Montgomery,  J.  F.  Smith;  Book  Agent,  H.  D.  Beaven, 
in  hands  of  President.  An  increase  of  800  members  was  reported  for  the  whole 
district. 


LTNCHBURO,  VA.,  COLLEGE  OPENED  417 


as  in  preparation  by  himself,  a  new  "History  of  the  Church," 
May,  1855.  He  spent  the  leisure  of  his  old  age  upon  it;  and  the 
writer  had  an  interview  with  him  in  the  fall  of  1858,  at  Fair- 
mount,  W.  Va.,  where  he  then  resided,  and  he  spoke  of  it  as 
nearing  completion.  It  was  probably  never  finished,  as,  after  his 
death,  this  and  other  manuscript  came  into  the  custody  of  his  son, 
lley.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  Jr.,  who,  after  again  announcing  it  for 
publication,  in  later  years,  had  a  personal  difficulty  with  the 
authorities  of  the  Western  paper,  which  he  then  edited,  that  led 
to  his  resignation  and  retirement  from  the  ministry  for  secular 
business,  at  Chillicothe,  0.  The  writer  had  correspondence  with 
him  anent  the  "History,"  about  1880;  but,  while  courteously 
answered,  no  satisfaction  could  ever  be  obtained  from  him  or 
other  members  of  the  family,  except  that  this  son  had  destroyed 
it.  Dorsey  Jr.  was  a  strong  and  powerful  preacher  and  a  ready 
and  graceful  writer,  and  a  veil  must  be  drawn  over  the  disturbing 
controversy  alluded  to,  in  which  he  was  probably  as  much  sinned 
against  as  sinning,  as  to  newspaper  management,  —  the  gist  of 
it.  Efforts  of  A.  H.  Bassett  to  recover  the  manuscript  of  Dorsey 
Sr.  also  failed.  This  much  in  dismissal  of  the  whole  matter  by 
anticipation.  Dr.  Clarke,  afterward  Bishop,  in  a  biography  of 
Bishop  Hedding  published  in  1855,  is  an  example  of  the  bitter  pre- 
judice yet  existing  among  their  leading  ministers.  He  speaks  of 
Asa  Shinn,  whom  even  Dr.  Bond  admitted  was  without  guile  and 
without  reproach,  as  "a  talented,  zealous,  laborious,  but  radical 
man,  and  a  great  disturber  of  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  Church." 
Like  disparaging  language  is  used  of  Bascom  and  Brown. 

Eev.  Alexander  Doniphan,  as  agent  of  Lynchburg  College, 
announced  its  organization,  with  Dr.  S.  K.  Cox  as  President,  and 
the  old  faculty  of  Madison,  with  fifty  students  engaged  and 
$10,000  subscribed  by  the  citizens  of  the  place  for  a  building. 
In  October  it  was  formally  opened  with  eighty  students,  and  one 
hundred  in  all  expected.  The  most  of  these  had  withdrawn  from 
Madison,  which,  at  its  opening  session  of  this  year,  still  reported 
fifty  in  attendance.  The  Virginia  Conference  formally  accepted 
Lynchburg  College,  and  the  buildings  were  ideally  created.  They 
were  to  be  in  good  architectural  style  and  in  a  commanding  situa- 
tion on  one  of  the  Lynchburg  hills.  It  was  incorporated  by  the 
Legislature  of  Virginia  in  January,  1856,  with  one  hundred  pu- 
pils. Corner-stone  of  the  College  was  laid  in  July,  1856.  The 
entire  cost  was  f 30,000,  as  reported  in  August,  1857,  of  which 
$20,000  was  paid.    In  December,  1857,  it  reported  $25,262 

VOL.  II  —  2  E 


418  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


expended  on  buildings  and  furniture,  of  which  ^5000  was  due 
a  Building  Association.^  The  President,  Dr.  Cox,  sanguine  in 
everything,  had  it  furnished  and  equipped  expensively,  for  which 
he  made  himself,  to  some  extent,  personally  responsible.  The 
financial  involvement  led  to  his  resignation  in  the  late  winter 
of  1858,  and  Professor  L.  Brockett  was  elected  President  pro 
tem.y  while  Dr.  Cox  opened  in  the  town  an  "Institute  for  Young 
Ladies,"  which  involved  him  further.  Ten  thousand  dollars  was 
promised  the  college,  and  Brockett  was  elected  President,  in 
June,  1858,  after  favorable  unofficial  reports  to  the  General  Con- 
ference in  Lynchburg,  May,  1858.  It  was  continued  with  vary- 
ing fortune  and  had  its  fifth  annual  Commencement  June,  1860, 
with  W.  W.  Walker  as  President.  He  resigned,  and  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomson  accepted  the  Presidency.  Meanwhile,  the  Female  Col- 
lege, under  Dr.  Cox,  was  sold  by  Rev.  William  McGwigan  to 
satisfy  a  large  claim  upon  it  due  him,  and  it  passed  from  under 
church  patronage.  In  1861  the  Civil  War  scattered  the  pupils 
and  faculty  of  Lynchburg  College,  and,  some  years  after,  it  was 
sold  to  satisfy  the  mortgage  of  the  Building  Association,  and 
turned  into  dwelling-houses.  Its  turrets  may  yet  be  seen,  mel- 
ancholy reminders  of  two  ill-advised  educational  ventures  in  this 
place. 

Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  editor  of  the  Neio  York  Christian  Advocate, 
departed  this  life  in  Xew  York  City,  March,  1856.  His  abilities 
were  marked  and  his  career  is  largely  sketched  in  this  work. 
His  closing  days  were  philosophically  calm,  and  his  retrospect 
of  his  course  supported  by  the  confession  that  he  believed  it  was 
for  the  good  of  the  Church  he  loved  so  well  and  so  zealously 
defended.  In  his  palmy  days  no  man  commanded  so  wide  an 
influence.  For  long  years  his  controversial  dicta  were  accepted 
as  exponents  of  its  polity;  but,  essentially  erroneous  as  was  the 
polity  itself,  a  rapidly  coming  future  will  repudiate  them,  and  his 
memory  fade  for  lack  of  emulation.  His  end  was  peaceful,  and 
no  one  will  question  his  Christian  integrity.  He  has  met 
McCaine  in  heaven,  though  in  the  hot  blood  of  his  partisan  zeal- 
otry he  was  emphatic  in  the  declaration  that  he  would  not. 
Jennings  and  Snethen  and  Shinn  and  Stockton  and  Harrod  are 
now  all  of  one  company.    His  son  Thomas  E.  was  elected  to  fill 

1  Let  it  be  placed  upon  record  that  of  this  sum  96000  was  contributed  by  Hou. 
B.  S.  Bibb  of  Alabama,  and  S6000  by  Captain  William  Harding  of  Virginia,  and 
S5000  by  Mr.  Steele  of  Alabama,  and  S-jOOO  by  the  citizens  of  Lynchburg,  mostly 
in  the  church.    For  that  day  these  were  liberal  sums. 


NEW  SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES 


419 


out  his  unexpired  time  to  the  General  Conference  of  the  old 
Church,  which  met  in  May,  1856,  at  Indianapolis,  Ind.  It  was 
fretted  by  the  presentation  of  numerous  memorials  asking  for 
lay-representation,  some  of  them  remarkable  for  the  manner  in 
which  they  traverse  the  arguments  used  by  the  Reformers  of 
1827-30,  but  cautiously  abstaining  from  any  credit  to  the  naughty 
"Radicals."  These  petitions  were  again  respectfully  considered, 
but  the  final  report  rehashes  the  old  statement :  The  petitioners 
represented  a  minority  of  the  Church.  The  educating  process, 
however,  was  bearing  fruit,  so  that  Dr.  Abel  Stevens  was  elected 
editor  of  the  official  paper,  though,  as  editor  of  the  Zion's  Herald, 
he  was  known  as  a  convert  to  lay-representation.  Opposing 
writers  in  the  Advocates  did  not  fail  to  revive  the  old  issues,  and 
with  the  usual  misrepresentations.  It  brought  Brown  and 
Hopper  and  Dorsey  and  Stockton  into  the  official  papers  on  the 
defensive. 

Under  the  patronage  of  the  North  Carolina  Conference,  Yadkin 
Institute  was  set  in  operation,  and  a  building  contracted  for  thirty 
by  sixty  feet  on  an  eminence  overlooking  the  Yadkin  Kiver. 
Halifax  Female  Seminary,  at  High  Point,  was  also  proposed  by 
the  North  Carolina  Conference,  February,  1857.  The  Conference 
Quarterly  of  New  York  and  Vermont  Conference,  a  small  quarto 
sheet,  edited  by  Eev.  Euel  Hanks,  was  inaugurated  July,  1857; 
and  the  Independent  Press,  Rev.  D.  B.  Dorsey  editor  and  pro- 
prietor, a  religious  and  literary  paper,  started  at  Martinsville  and 
Bridgeport,  Belmont  County,  0.,  August,  1857,  and  soon  removed 
to  Moundsville,  Va.  Rev.  Peyton  S.  Graves,  whose  career  had 
been  marked  with  irregularities  in  the  Church,  under  the  stress 
of  poverty,  recanted  formally  his  Reform  principles  and  associa- 
tions, and  was  received  into  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South.  The  Illinois  Conference  entertained  the  idea  of  a  North 
Illinois  University,  and  elected  trustees  in  October,  1857.  As 
an  instance  of  English  intolerance  of  Reform  Methodists  among 
them,  the  Wesleyans,  with  one  consent,  closed  their  chapel  doors 
against  the  celebrated  revivalist.  Rev.  James  Caughy,  because  he 
consented  to  labor  in  the  Primitive  and  Free  Methodist  chapels. 
He  afterward  met  with  great  success  in  a  tour  of  the  United 
States,  but  was  wise  enough  not  to  antagonize  similar  intolerance 
by  confining  his  ministrations  to  the  old  Church.  The  Christian 
Advocate  of  Memphis,  Tenn.,  and  the  Northern  Advocate  of  North- 
western New  York  came  out  for  lay-representation,  in  November, 
1857.    Bowdon  Collegiate  Institute  of  Georgia  was  recognized  by 


420  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 

the  Georgia  Conference  and  patronized,  in  1857.  Kev.  George 
Brown  remonstrated  before  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  against 
any  form  of  "  separation  "  from  the  East  and  South,  as  proposed 
by  the  leaders  of  the  call  for  the  Cincinnati  Convention.  A 
large  Convention  of  clerical  and  lay-delegates  assembled  at 
Rochester,  N.Y.,  December,  1857,  and  passed  earnest  resolutions 
favoring  lay-representation  and  the  abolition  of  the  presiding 
eldership;  and  Rev.  Dr.  Leroy  M.  Lee,  editor  of  the  Eichmond  Ad- 
vocate, Virginia,  took  strong  ground  in  favor  of  lay-representation 
in  his  branch  of  the  Church.  The  reader  will  ejaculate,  "  Surely 
something  came  of  all  this  agitation  and  memorializing !  "  Un- 
sophisticated reader,  nothing  came  of  it;  and  not  much  has  been 
effected  to  this  year  of  our  Lord  1895,  forty  years  after.  En- 
tailed and  entrenched  clerical  Methodist  power  never  has  capitu- 
lated, —  it  never  did,  or  can,  reform  itself.  Under  great 
pressure  in  recent  years,  it  has  abated  a  little  of  its  pretentious 
claims,  but  only  to  mollify  by  a  limited  and  circumscribed  lay- 
delegation,  still  under  clerical  control  in  its  last  analysis;  but  a 
lay-representation  from  "  the  people  called  Methodists "  never 
has  been  conceded,  and  probably  never  will  be.^ 

The  Board  of  Missions,  soon  after  the  General  Conference  of 
1854,  elected  Rev.  John  Scott,  Agent,  and  he  entered  upon  his 
duties,  travelling  quite  extensively  not  in  the  North  only,  but 
among  the  Southern  Conferences,  meeting  with  welcome  every- 
vi^here  and  a  fair  measure  of  success.  He  was  accompanied  South 
by  Dr.  George  Brown,  as  President  of  Madison  College,  collect- 
ing old  subscriptions  to  it;  and  he  acknowledges  that,  as  a  rule, 
the  claims  were  honorably  settled  by  brethren  whose  whole  inter- 
est was  now  concentrated  upon  Lynchburg  College.  Much  space 
is  given  by  both  these  brethren,  Brown  in  his  ^'Itinerant  Life," 
and  Scott  in  his  "Fifty  Years,"  to  their  experience  as  to  the  atti- 
tude of  the  South  in  prospective  resistance  and  secession  in  given 
circumstances.  There  matured  undoubtedly  a  latent  purpose  in 
both  sections  by  extreme  men :  in  the  North  to  extirpate  slavery 

1  Rev.  T.  H.  Lewis,  D.D.,  in  a  pamphlet  used  in  connection  with  the  seventieth 
anniversary,  1898,  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  has  clearly  set  fortli  the 
vital  differences  between  a  lay-delegation  and  a  lay-representation  in  Methodism. 
This  difference  has  been  often  pointed  out  in  this  History,  but  not  with  such  elabo- 
rate force,  and  it  has  been  embodied  in  Appendix  J,  at  the  close  of  the  first  volume. 
This  showing  is  all  the  more  necessary  now  for  the  reason  that  in  both  the  General 
Conferences  of  the  dominant  Methodisms  of  thiz  country  equal  lay-delegation, 
after  a  long  struggle  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  has  been  secured,  but  it  is  in  no  sense 
a  lay-representation.  Why  it  is  not,  Dr.  Lewis  makes  very  apparent.  The  reader 
should  carefully  peruse  it  before  proceeding. 


''MANIFEST  DESTINY''  FORESHADOWED  421 


as  a  national  institution  by  force  of  arras  as  a  last  resort,  and  in 
the  South  to  resist  aggression  by  force  of  arms  as  a  last  resort; 
only  with  the  former  it  was  more  pronounced  and  overt.  The 
conspiracy  of  John  Brown  and  his  confederates,  with  Harper's 
Ferry,  Va.,  in  1859,  as  the  objective  of  attack  for  a  forcible 
emancipation,  and  the  concentration  of  the  material  of  the  army 
and  navy  by  the  Southern  secretary  of  War,  are  part  of  the 
evidence. 

E.  Yeates  Reese,  as  editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  Janu- 
ary 27,  1857,  makes  sad  comment  upon  the  recent  suicide  of  the 
Scotch  geologist,  Hugh  Miller,  and  adds  a  touching  moral.  In 
September,  1861,  but  four  years  after,  he  did  the  same  thing, 
and  from  the  same  cause,  —  overtaxed  mind  and  body.  Aberra- 
tion to  the  point  of  irresponsibility  was  clearly  traced  in  the  case 
of  the  Christian  scientist,  and  will  be  made  equally  clear  in  the 
case  of  the  lamented  Dr.  E.  Yeates  Reese. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


Seventh  General  Conference  at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  1858  — Roster  of  members;  Rev. 
W.  C.  Lipscomb,  President ;  the  only  instance  of  a  local  minister  being  thus 
honored  in  the  Church  —  Overshadowing  business  was  the  Memorial  of  the 
Cincinnati  Convention  of  the  West  and  North;  various  reports  on  it;  full  par- 
ticulars and  an  impartial  statement  of  the  case  made  up  from  all  sources,  as 
well  as  after  differing  recollections  of  intentions  and  actions  —  "Prayer  of 
Consecration  "  in  the  M.  E.  Church  rubric  and  its  abolition  in  the  new  Church 
finally;  a  relic  of  the  Mass  —  Various  incidental  matters  at  this  Conference; 
statistics  ;  Board  of  Missions  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South, 
forbidden  by  the  Bishop's  Address  to  discuss  the  lay-delegation  question  — Call 
of  the  Springfield  Convention;  roster  of  members;  its  action  on  the  call ;  sus- 
pension of  official  relations  with  the  East  and  South  so  long  as  the  evil  com- 
plained of  (slavery)  should  exist  among  them ;  its  construction  by  both  sides ; 
Discipline  changed  to  conform  to  the  separation  —  The  Weatern  Methodist 
Protestant. 

The  Seventh  General  Conference  of  the  Church  convened  at 
Lynchburg,  Ya.,  May  4,  1858.  Both  the  manuscript  and  the 
printed  Minutes  are  before  the  writer.  A  roster  of  those  present 
the  first  day  is  given  by  the  Secretary,  and,  also,  of  those  who 
subsequently  appeared  in  person,  or  by  written  communication, 
and  wished  to  be  recorded  as  members,  making  a  total  in  attend- 
ance of  twenty-three  ministers  and  sixteen  laymen.  These  will  be 
designated  in  the  following  roster,  made  up  and  added  as  an  ap- 
pendix to  the  printed  Minutes  by  the  editor  of  the  official  paper, 
who  was  deputed  by  the  secretaries  to  codify  and  print  them. 
Those  who  will  be  at  the  pains  to  compare  this  list  with  that  of 
the  delegates  to  the  Springfield  Convention  of  November,  1858, 
as  given  in  its  minutes  by  A.  H.  Bassett,  will  observe  that  the 
same  brethren  were  not  in  all  cases  elected  as  representatives  in 
both  Conference  and  Convention,  notably  in  the  Xew  York  and 
Yermont,  which  elected  and  instructed  separate  delegations. 
The  New  Jersey  Conference  elected  representatives  to  the  Con- 
ference, and  were  so  recognized  by  letter,  but  not  to  the  Conven- 
tion, and  New  Jersey  does  not  appear  in  its  list. 

The  General  Conference  was  organized  by  calling  Hon.  B.  S. 
Bibb  to  the  chair,  and  W.  H.  AYills,  Secretary  pro  tern. 

422 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1858 


423 


The  following  is  believed  to  be  a  correct  list  of  the  members  of  the  General 
Conference  of  1858.  It  is  no  part  of  the  Record,  but  is  made  up  from  the  best 
facilities  that  are  at  hand.  —  Ed.  Meth.  Prot. 


Ministers 
J.  J.  Murray  ^ 
Josiah  Varden  ^ 
W.  C.  Lipscomb  1 
Dan'l  Zollickoffer  i 


R.  B.  Thomson  1 
J.  G.  Whitfield  1 
G.  R.  Barri 


Maryland 


Virginia 


Laymen 
J.  B.  Mathews,  Alt.i 
J.  W.  Richardson 
Luther  Martin  i 
J.  B.  Thomas  1 
Geo.  Vickersi 


C.  W.  Button  1 

W.  Harding  1 

H.  B.  Woodhousei 


P.  T.  Laishleyi 
D.  R.  Helmick 
D.  B.  Dorsey,  Sr.,  Alt.i 
Sam'l  Clawson^ 


J.  K.  Hembold 


Western  Virginia 

C.  W.  Newlon 
F.  H.  Pierponti 
Hon.  Z.  Kidwelli 


William  Collier  i 
Wm.  Reeves  1 


Pennsylvania 


Wm.  Dale 


Pittsburgh 


J.  R.  Griffith 
J.  Redman 


R.  Hanks 


New  York  and  Vermont 

A.  Seaman 


T.  T.  Heiss 


New  Jersey 


E.  C.  Pancoast 


J.  M.  Mayall 

A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  M.  Flood 
Joseph  J.  White  i 


A.  A.  Houston 
Elisha  Lott  i 


Boston 
Ohio 


George  Pierce 

J.  M.  Johnson 
S.  Graham 
E.  D.  Norris 


North  Mississippi 

W.  R.  Montgomery 

Mississippi 

N.  B.  Whitehead 
1  These  only  were  present. 


424 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


NoBTH  Carolina 


Ministers 
J.  F.  Speight  1 
Alson  Gray 
W.  H.  Wills  1 


H.  T.  Arnold 


C.  A.  McDanieli 


B.  F.  Duggan  i 


O.  Potts 


G.  W.  Johnson 


M.  Stimson  ^ 


F.  L.  B.  Shaver  I 
S.  E.  Norton  1 


Samuel  Hughes  ^ 

Jeremiah  Dodson 
I.  H.  Hogan 
O.  C.  Payne 


G.  Clancy  1 
R.  Andrew 
J.  S.  Thrap 


Laymen 
Jas.  N.  Speight  i 
Calvin  Johnston 
M.  C.  Whitaker 


South  Carolina 


Georgia 


Tennessee 


Hiram  Yarboroughi 


John  Webb  i 


J.  L.  Armstrong  1 


West  Tennessee 

Zach.  Biggs,  Jr. 


Louisiana 


Arkansas 


Alabama 


Missouri 


S.  M.  Grigsby 
J.  Cottingham 


Hon.  B.  S.  Bibbi 

E.  H.  Cook 

J.  H.  Smith,  Alt.i 


G.  Hendricks  1 


Oregon  and  California 

M.  P.  Gilliam 


Onondaga 


Genesee 


Muskingum 


B.  G.  Swift 


B.  A.  Nichols 


I.  Cassell 
J.  Wells 
J.  Fordyce 


1  These  only  were  present. 


CINCINNATI  CONVENTION  MEMORIAL  425 


Indiana 


Ministers 
T.  Shipp 


Laymen 
Wm.  Smith 


Wabash 


S.  W.  Widney 


Jas.  H.  Williams 


North  Illinois 


W.  E.  Martin 


Wm.  Cullen 


South  Illinois 


R.  Wright 


I.  Patterson 


Illinois 


Joel  Dalbey 


T.  R.  Markillie 


Iowa 


Wm.  Patterson 


J.  B.  Bass 


Texas 


R.  A.  Sloan 


Samuel  Oliver 


After  a  most  careful  and  rigid  analysis  of  the  Minutes  by  the 
writer,  he  finds  that  there  were  twenty-three  ministers  and  six- 
teen laymen  present,  though  Bassett's  "History"  gives  forty  as 
the  attendance.  Rev.  Jeremiah  Dodson  of  the  Oregon  Conference 
failed  to  reach  the  General  Conference  before  adjournment,  owing 
to  a  miss  of  connection  by  ocean  steamer,  but  came  on  to  Balti- 
more, a  distance  of  between  five  and  six  thousand  miles,  and  at 
his  own  expense.  Such  was  the  devotion  and  zeal  of  not  a  few 
Reform  ministers  even  in  that  day.  The  Conference  gave  honor- 
ary seats  to  a  number  of  ex-members  and  visitors  who  were  pres- 
ent, with  the  privilege  of  debate,  and  several  availed  themselves 
of  it.  On  the  second  day  of  the  session  Rev.  William  C.  Lips- 
comb, an  unstationed  minister  of  the  Maryland  Conference  who 
had  been  honored  with  an  election  (as  well  as  Rev.  Daniel  Zol- 
lickoffer,  also  an  unstationed  minister),  was  duly  elected  President 
of  the  General  Conference,  and  J.  J.  White  and  D.  B.  Dorsey, 
Jr.,  Secretaries.  It  was  the  first  and  only  time  in  the  Church 
liistory  that  an  unstationed  minister  was  thus  honored;  but  his 
Reform  record  made  him  worthy,  while  his  commanding  presence 
and  parliamentary  ability  made  it  a  wise  choice. 

The  business  of  the  Conference  that  overshadowed  all  other 
was  the  Memorial  from  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  presented  in 
person  by  William  Collier.    Its  substance  has  already  been  given 


426 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


in  the  notes  upon  that  Convention.  It  was  referred  to  a  special 
committee  on  Memorials  and  Petitions:  J.  J.  Murray,  William 
Collier,  George  Vickers,  B.  S.  Bibb,  and  Z.  Kidwell.  May  12, 
J.  J.  Murray,  chairman  of  the  committee,  submitted  a  report, 
signed  by  himself  and  George  Vickers.  It  was  elaborate  and 
argumentative,  taking  up  all  the  points  of  the  Cincinnati  Conven- 
tion paper,  and  traversing  the  whole  ground  of  the  questions  at 
issue,  making  four  closely  printed  pages  of  the  Minutes,  and  it 
declined  acceding  to  the  requests  of  the  memorialists.  Another 
minority  report  was  also  submitted  from  Z.  Kidwell  and  B.  S. 
Bibb,  of  the  committee,  in  brief  substance  that  "this  General 
Conference  has  no  constitutional  authority  to  grant  the  prayers 
of  the  petitioners."  On  the  13th  of  May,  William  Collier,  of  the 
committee,  offered  a  third  report,  reviewing  the  others  at  length 
and  summing  up  in  four  points,  the  last  of  which  is  the  gist  of 
his  position:  "A  severance  from  this  General  Conference  is  not 
a  severance  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church;  for  this 
General  Conference  is  not  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  it  is 
only  an  institution  of  the  Church;  and,  if  two-thirds  of  the 
Annual  Conferences  shall  so  determine,  they  can  as  legally  and 
consistently  provide  for  two  General  Conferences  as  for  two 
Church  Book  Concerns."  It  makes  two  printed  pages  of  the 
Minutes.  All  three  reports  were  laid  on  the  table. ^  Subse- 
quently, a  motion  to  take  them  up  and  vote  upon  them  "  without 
debate "  was  lost.  So  there  was  opportunity  for  free  and  full 
discussion,  the  citizens  of  that  town  largely  attending;  and  the 
most  extreme  utterances  met  with  no  interruption.  Thus,  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  of  the  brethren  North  and  West  for  not  at- 
tending, as  declared  by  J.  M.  Plood  in  the  Convention  of  1857, 
that  freedom  of  debate  would  not  be  allowed  and  that  they  could 
not  be  present  except  on  a  full  equality  with  their  brethren  in 
this  regard,  was  disproved.  A  motion  made  to  lay  the  first  report 
on  the  table  as  a  finality  was  accepted,  and  J.  J.  Murray  called  for 
a  vote  by  orders  and  by  yeas  and  nays.  It  resulted :  ministers,  yeas 
thirteen;  ministers,  nays  five.  Laymen,  yeas  thirteen;  laymen, 
nays  three.  So  the  motion  to  lay  on  the  table  was  carried  by  a 
joint  majority  of  twenty-six  to  eight.  Collier,  Beeves,  Clancy, 
and  White  were  excused  from  voting.  At  the  afternoon  session 
pending  a  motion  to  adopt  the  second  report.  Collier,  Beeves, 
Clancy,  and  White  were  granted  leave  of  absence,  and  the  Con- 

1  The  full  text  of  these  three  reports  may  be  found  in  both  the  manuscript 
and  printed  Minutes,  and  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  of  even  date. 


PROPOSITIONS  AND  COUNTER  PROPOSITIONS  427 


ference  adjourned.  At  the  morning  session  of  May  14,  the  last 
day  of  the  Conference,  a  motion  was  made  to  take  up  the  second 
report  of  the  Memorial  Committee;  and,  after  discussion,  it  was 
adopted.    The  Minutes  then  state ;  — 

Bro.  Varden  presented  the  following  document,  and  moved  its  adoption  :  — 

Resolved,  That  this  General  Conference  hereby  recommend  to  the  several 
Annual  Conferences  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  the  call  of  a  Con- 
vention as  provided  for  in  the  Constitution  of  said  Church,  Art.  XVII.,  on  the 
following  specified  conditions  :  — 

1.  That  the  several  Annual  Conferences  represented  in  the  Cincinnati 
Convention,  and  petitioners  to  this  body,  shall  severally  at  the  first  session 
of  their  respective  Conferences,  after  the  rise  of  this  body,  sanction  said  call, 
immediate  notice  of  which  shall  be  given  in  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant, 
and  Methodist  Protestant  of  Baltimore. 

2.  That  the  said  Annual  Conferences  making  this  call  shall,  with  the  reso- 
lution of  call,  solemnly  pledge  themselves  to  legislate  on  no  subject  whatso- 
ever, except  the  three  points  specified  as  follows  :  — 

(1)  To  make  no  change  in  that  portion  of  the  Constitution  relating  to 
suffrage  except  the  reference  of  the  whole  question  of  suffrage  to  the  Annual 
Conferences,  so  that  each  Annual  Conference  shall  be  left  free  to  define  its 
own  terms  of  suffrage. 

(2)  The  explicit  declaration  by  the  said  General  Convention  that  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  shall  never  hereafter  legislate  or  express  an  opinion  on  ques- 
tions of  morality  affecting  membership  ;  leaving  all  offences  to  be  determined 
by  the  local  judiciaries,  according  to  the  Word  of  God. 

(3)  Providing  for  a  Book  Concern  to  publish  only  our  Hymn  Book,  Disci- 
pline, and  General  Conference  proceedings  —  periodicals  to  be  published  by 
Annual  Conferences  separately,  or  by  conventional  agreement. 

3.  That  the  Conferences  making  the  call  solemnly  agree  to  abide  by  the 
decision  of  said  General  Convention,  within  the  said  prescribed  limits. 

4.  On  the  above  stipulated  terms  a  Convention  is  recommended.  But  if, 
between  the  present  time  and  the  meeting  of  the  General  Conference  in  1862, 
a  majority  of  the  Annual  Conferences  represented  in  the  Cincinnati  Conven- 
tion should  refuse  to  pledge  themselves  as  above  specified,  or  by  any  Confer- 
ence or  conventional  act  of  legislation  shall  attempt  to  change  the  provisions 
of  the  Constitution  or  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  then 
this  General  Conference  recommend  that  the  Annual  Conferences  immedi- 
ately preceding  the  General  Conference  of  1862  recede  from  the  arrangement 
and  refuse  to  call  a  Convention.  Josiah  Varden, 

Wm.  C.  Lipscomb, 
R.  B.  Thomson, 
J.  G.  Whitfield. 

It  was  made  the  order  of  the  day  for  3  o'clock  p.m.  When  it 
arrived,  it  was  called  for  by  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  who  moved  to  lay 
the  paper  on  the  table.  Though  he  prepared  the  original,  it  was 
so  amended  by  Varden  and  others  that  he  made  this  motion; 


428  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


which  was  lost.  The  paper  was  taken  up  by  items.  "  The  vote 
was  then  taken  on  the  whole  paper,  and  it  was  adopted."  The 
vote  is  not  given,  but  it  is  known  that  Dr.  Murray  and  some 
others  dissented.  The  intent  of  this  paper  having  been  subse- 
quently variously  construed,  it  seems  pertinent,  that  it  may  be 
disposed  of  in  the  present  connection,  to  anticipate  events  bearing 
upon  it.  A.  H.  Bassett,  having  affirmed  in  Lis  "History,"  1877, 
lirst  edition,  p.  164,  commenting  on  this  so-called  "pacificatory" 
measure,  that  "  The  subject  of  slavery  was  not  named  in  the  paper 
adopted.  The  word  'white  '  was,  of  course,  to  remain  in  the  Con- 
stitution; "  exception  was  taken  to  it  by  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  and, 
in  the  second  edition,  the  author  so  far  modified  his  statement 
as  to  give  his  exception,  coupling  with  it  a  note  from  Dr.  Wil- 
liam Collier  on  the  same  subject.  They  may  be  found  in  the 
revised  "History,"  pp.  199,  200.  Dr.  Murray's  exception  is,  in 
substance :  "  The  design  of  the  paper  amended  by  brother  Varden 
and  adopted  by  the  Conference,  was  not,  in  its  inception,  what- 
ever may  have  been  thought  of  it  afterward,  to  retain  the  word 
'white.'  It  was  to  remove  that  word  from  the  book;  and  thus 
remove  a  bone  of  contention.  This  I  knowy  having  prepared  the 
original  paper  with  this  intent,  and  believing  at  the  time  that  the 
proposition  would  save  the  Church.  ...  I  am  gratified  to  think 
that,  substantially,  the  proposition  I  made  to  save  the  Church 
from  division,  became  the  basis  of  reunion  in  1877."  Dr.  Collier 
substantially  says :  "  I  was  a  member  of  the  General  Conference 
of  1858.  ...  In  the  discussion  of  the  subject,  especially  upon 
the  question  of  striking  out  the  word  white,  great  interest  was 
excited  in  the  community;  and  full  audiences  were  in  attendance. 
...  I  do  not  believe  that  any  considerable  number  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Conference  would,  at  the  time,  have  consented  to  any 
measure  striking  out  the  word  ichite.  ...  It  was  evident  to 
me  at  the  time,  and  is  still  evident  to  my  recollection,  that  the 
document,  as  received  and  understood,  by  no  means  involved  or 
implied  the  striking  out  of  the  word  white.^' 

A  few  observations  may  be  made  by  the  writer  on  the  difference 
between  them  in  a  sincere  purpose,  on  this  subject  particularly, 
"to  record  and  not  make  history."  Dr.  Collier's  affirmations  are 
that  "  at  the  time  "  the  word  "  white  "  could  not  have  been  stricken 
out;  while  Dr.  Murray  only  claims  that,  if  such  a  Convention  as 
proposed  by  the  paper  had  been  agreed  to,  it  would  have  been 
stricken  out.  It  was  impossible  that  the  former  should  know  the 
mind  of  the  brethren,  not  having  their  confidence  on  this  subject; 


''PRAYER  OF  CONSECRATION''  STRUCK  OUT  429 


while  the  latter  had,  and  could  knoWf  as  he  affirms.  Again,  the 
essential  part  of  the  paper  is  in  the  words  of  the  first  provision 
of  the  second  section  as  to  suffrage.  It  is  true  that  what  was 
then  refused  was  practically  accepted  as  the  basis  of  union  in 
1877.  This  is  the  writer's  reason  for  introducing  the  full  text  of 
this  paper  to  the  exclusion,  because  of  their  great  length,  of  the 
three  reports  previously  made  on  the  question.  A.  H.  Bassett 
says  of  the  paper :  "  This  so-called  peace  measure  was  regarded 
by  those  concerned  as  trifling  with  a  respectful  and  dispassionate 
appeal  from  a  deliberative  assembly,  representing,  as  it  was  be- 
lieved, not  less  than  half  the  Methodist  Protestant  connection. 
The  proposition  was  nowhere  entertained."  It  was  not  named 
in  the  Springfield  Convention  of  1858.  The  truth  of  the  matter 
probably  was,  that  the  East  and  South  were  in  no  mood  to  make 
concessions,  having  the  Constitution  and  Discipline,  as  it  was  in 
their  favor,  and  the  necessities  of  their  situation  pressing  upon 
them;  while  the  North  and  West,  in  foregone  conclusion  of  sepa- 
ration as  the  only  remedy  for  the  necessities  pressing  upon  them, 
were  in  no  mood  to  listen  to  concessions,  —  if  they  had  been  made. 

The  other  salient  events  of  the  General  Conference  may  be  more 
briefly  stated.  An  effort  was  made  to  strike  out  the  preamble  to 
the  invitation  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  "the  officiating  minister  or 
ministers  may  now  partake,  after  which  the  following  invitation 
shall  be  given."  It  was  declared  simply  permissive,  and  not 
mandatory,  as  the  word  may  makes  plain.  In  after  years  it  was, 
however,  stricken  out ;  thus  abolishing  the  last  preferment,  even 
in  a  rubric,  of  the  clerical  over  the  laical  class,  esteemed  spe- 
cially objectionable  in  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  was  the  ultimate 
of  a  protest  against  one  of  the  Eomish  forms  of  the  old  Church 
inherited  from  Coke  and  Asbury,  and  in  mimicry  of  hierarchic 
episcopacy.  Reference  is  of  course  made  to  the  "  prayer  of  con- 
secration "  of  the  elements  preserved  to  this  day  in  their  ritual, 
with  the  direction :  Then  shall  the  minister  first  receive  the  com- 
munion in  both  kinds  himself,  and  then  proceed  to  deliver  the 
same  to  the  other  ministers  in  like  manner,  if  any  be  present." 
"  Then  a  hymn  may  be  sung  and  the  communicants  invited  to  the 
table."  It  was  formerly  indicated  in  the  consecrating  prayer 
that  the  minister  touch  the  bread  where  the  word  occurs  and  the 
wine  where  it  occurs.  This  part  of  the  mummery  was  stricken 
out,  as  too  palpably  Eomish,  and  aping  the  "transubstantiation" 
or  the  " consubstantiation  "  errors  of  Eome  or  Luther.^   It  is  still 

1  See  M.  E.  Discipline,  1832,  p.  98,  and  later  editions. 


430 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


required,  so  great  is  the  stress  yet  laid  upon  this  "  consecration  " 
of  the  elements :  "  If  the  elder  be  straitened  for  time  he  may  omit 
any  part  of  the  service  except  the  prayer  of  consecration.  If  the 
consecrated  bread  or  wine  be  all  spent  before  all  have  communi- 
cated, the  elder  may  consecrate  more  by  repeating  the  prayer  of 
consecration."  Nothing  can  be  claimed  for  the  instructions  save 
that  it  is  a  fiction  of  the  "Mass,"  the  real  presence  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ.  The  statements  here  made  will  be  revela- 
tions to  not  a  few  readers,  and  will  accentuate  the  differences 
between  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Churches  for  those  tender-footed  people  who  say  that  the  vari- 
ances, both  ritualistic  and  governmental,  are  unimportant. 

A  committee  to  revise  the  hymn  book  was  appointed;  the  work 
was  subsequently  performed  principally  by  E.  Yeates  Reese, 
published  by  the  Baltimore  Concern,  and  largely  sold,  as  it  was 
a  very  complete  and  popular  collection.  The  Board  of  Mis- 
sions made  a  full  report,  with  a  financial  statement  by  the 
treasurer,  William  J.  Troth.  It  showed  that  a  total  for  the 
quadrennium  had  been  received  of  $5752.15  in  subscriptions  and 
for  the  Missionary  and  Sabbath- ScJiool  Journal,  and  a  like  sum 
expended  for  the  Journal,  general  Agents,  and  Missionaries,  plus 
$67.35,  balance  in  hand.  A  new  Course  of  Study  was  adopted. 
A  committee  to  prepare  a  catechism  was  appointed,  with  Dr. 
Francis  Waters,  chairman.  He  afterward  produced  a  larger  and  a 
smaller  Catechism,  which  were  issued  by  the  Baltimore  Concern, 
and  largely  sold;  and  it  remains  the  Catechism  of  the  Church, 
with  some  important  emendations  on  church  polity  to  the  larger, 
by  Rev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  to  this  day;  and  it  merits  closer  atten- 
tion from  the  parents  and  Sabbath-schools  of  the  Church.  The 
application  of  the  Charleston,  S.  C,  church  for  a  mission  relation 
to  the  Maryland  Conference,  the  object  being  to  retain  the  pastor 
more  than  two  years,  as  prohibited  by  the  "Restrictive  Rule," 
was  reported  favorably,  but  warmly  contested  by  the  strict  con- 
structionists of  law;  but  the  effort  to  defeat  the  report  under 
a  "vote  by  order"  failed  by  nearly  two-thirds  majority.  It 
opened  the  way  for  more  liberal  legislation  on  the  subject  in  the 
future.  The  Ratio  of  Representation  was  much  discussed,  in 
view  of  the  menace  of  separation  of  the  brethren  North  and  West, 
and,  finally,  fixed  at  fifteen  hundred,  a  reduction  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty.  The  place  of  the  next  General  Conference  was  named 
as  Georgetown,  D.  C.  There  being  no  reports  from  the  North 
and  West,  it  was  found  impracticable  to  furnish  the  statistics  of 


OTHER  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  DOINGS 


431 


the  Church.  Taking  the  basis  of  1854,  about  72,000  as  a  total  of 
ministers  and  members,  and  an  increase  of  ten  per  cent  for  the 
quadrennium,  —  the  usual  average  heretofore,  —  about  80,000 
would  have  been  the  numerical  strength  in  1858.  Of  this  number 
A.  H.  Bassett,  a  painstaking  tabulist,  claimed  for  the  adhering 
twenty-one  Conferences,  North  and  West,  including  the  increase 
for  the  six  months  from  May  to  November,  most  all  these  Con- 
ferences being  held  in  the  autumn,  about  36,500;  houses  of  wor- 
ship, 479  J  and  value  of  property,  $551,000,  or  nearly  one-half  of 
the  entire  denomination  in  numbers,  churches,  and  valuation. 

The  Convention  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  Book  Concern 
was  held  May  11,  1858.  P.  T.  Laishley  was  called  to  the  chair, 
and  Samuel  E.  Norton  appointed  Secretary.  The  Book  Directory 
made  its  report,  but  it  does  not  appear  in  the  manuscript  minutes 
of  the  Convention.  F.  H.  Pierpont  moved  to  elect  an  editor, 
and  E.  Yeates  Reese  was  elected.  After  incidental  business  the 
Convention  adjourned.  The  Huntsville  District  having  become 
"inoperate,"  the  territory  was  divided  between  the  Tennessee 
and  the  Alabama  Conferences.  It  was  recommended  in  the  re- 
port of  the  committee  that  the  "  Board  of  Missions  be  continued 
as  heretofore."  A  report  from  the  trustees  of  Madison  College, 
now  suspended,  was  received,  and  a  committee,  composed  of 
Whitfield,  Woodhouse,  and  Pierpont,  reported,  that  as  it  had 
been  placed  by  its  "  trustees  in  an  advisory  relation  to  the  Gen- 
eral Conference,  therefore,  resolved  that  this  Conference  is  will- 
ing to  continue  the  relation,  unless  the  Board  of  Trustees  think 
proper  to  change  it."  Lynchburg  College  did  not  come  before 
the  body  officially.  It  was  under  the  special  patronage  of  the 
Virginia  Conference.  A  Methodist  Protestant  Annual  Regis- 
ter" was  recommended  to  the  Book  Concern;  but  nothing  came 
of  it.  W.  G.  Snethen,  Esq.,  son  of  Nicholas  Snethen,  announced 
his  purpose  to  publish  his  father's  biography  and  works,  in  eight 
volumes,  octavo,  and  it  was  commended;  but,  as  already  found, 
nothing  came  of  it.  Dennis  B.  Dorsey's  new  History"  was 
commended,  but,  as  also  found,  nothing  came  of  it.  Slight 
amendments  were  made  to  the  church  law,  which  appear  in  a 
revised  edition  of  the  Discipline,  issued  a  few  months  after  the 
Conference  adjourned.  It  had  bound  up  with  it  Dr.  Waters' 
Address,  as  found  in  the  Discipline  of  1830,  etc.,  Bascom's 
"Summary  of  Rights,"  and  an  Order  of  Business  for  Annual 
Conferences.  Its  sale,  and  that  of  the  revised  hymn  book, 
greatly  relieved  the  Book  Concern,  financially,  for  several  years. 


432 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  General  Conference  adjourned,  with  prayer  by  the  Presi- 
dent, May  14,  1858,  after  a  session  of  ten  days. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  had  been  in  session  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  about  the  same 
time.  As  has  been  found,  the  discussion  of  lay-delegation  was 
widespread  in  that  Church,  several  of  the  Advocates  favoring  it, 
and,  in  consequence,  a  number  of  petitions  were  sent  up  asking 
for  its  introduction.  And  now  came  another  instance  of  the  un- 
truth of  Dr.  Emory's  dictum  after  he  had  abandoned  his  reform 
principles,  to  wit:  that  the  General  Conference  had  no  power  to 
stifle  legislation  through  its  episcopacy.  The  bishops  of  the 
Church,  South  sprung  a  surprise  upon  its  General  Conference  by 
forestalling,  in  their  episcopal  Address,  the  discussion  of  the 
lay-delegation  question,  and  advised  that  the  editors  be  admon- 
ished not  to  discuss  it,  nor  suffer  others  so  to  do.  In  conse- 
quence, the  petitions  received  but  cavalier  treatment  from  the 
committee,  who  reported,  adversely,  the  threadbare  declaration 
that  it  was  "not  generally  desired  by  the  Church."  The  adver- 
sities suffered  during  the  Civil  War,  however,  broke  this  arrogant 
and  unresponsive  spirit  j  and  in  1866  it  was  entertained  favorably, 
as  will  be  seen. 

The  incidental  transactions  of  the  Church  in  both  sections,  as 
culled  from  the  respective  official  papers,  worthy  of  notation, 
were  the  following.  George  Clancy,  William  Collier,  and  others 
discussed,  in  their  paper,  the  action  of  the  General  Conference 
with  sharpness,  and  earnestly  advocated  the  proposed  Springfield 
Convention,  not  without  rebuttals  from  John  Burns,  D.  B.  Dor- 
sey.  Sr.,  and  others;  the  problem  being:  a  General  Conference 
acting  under  a  Constitution  and  Discipline  for  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  being  given,  how  to  organize  another  General 
Conference  under  another  Constitution  and  Discipline  for  another 
Methodist  Protestant  Church.  It  involved  serious  ethical,  legal, 
and  prudential  questions.  What  came  of  it  will  be  presently 
seen.  The  Literary  Committee  of  the  Book  Concern  approved 
what  the  Commissioners  did  at  Lynchburg,  and  an  Address  was 
issued,  prepared  by  A.  H.  Trumbo,  urging  unanimity  of  action 
of  the  Northern  and  Western  Conferences  in  the  call  for  the 
Springfield  Convention  of  1858.  Every  argument  and  influence 
was  brought  to  bear  against  the  recalcitrants  in  their  own  section 
and,  in  the  end,  successfully.  "On  June  17,  1858,  a  noble  band 
of  brethren  organized  a  Conference  in  the  then  young  and  fron- 
tier state  of  Minnesota.    This  took  place  at  Louthrie  school- 


SPRINGFIELD  GENERAL  CONVENTION  OF  1858  433 

house,  Filmore  County,  upon  the  call  of  Stephen  Jones,  who  has 
since  proved  himself,  these  many  years,  a  veteran  of  the  cause, 
through  ardent  toils  and  many  discouragements  incident  to  fron- 
tier work.  At  the  first  session,  five  ministers  and  four  lay- 
delegates  were  in  attendance.  James  P.  Long  was  the  first 
President."*  Obituary  of  Kev.  James  Murray,  M.D.,  an  original 
llefoiiner  of  the  Indiana  Conference,  November  3,  1858.  Mi.s.s 
Susan  E-amsburg,  a  maiden  lady  of  Frederick  County,  Md.,  be- 
queathed her  property,  nearly  $8000,  to  a  local  benevolent  society 
of  the  Church  in  that  section,  which  is  still  available  for  local 
purposes.  Obituary  of  Rev.  John  Godwin,  M.D.,  of  Virginia, 
a  Reformer,  August  28,  1858.  The  Cincinnati  station  voted 
against  sending  delegates  to  the  Springfield  Convention  as  late 
as  September,  1858,  and  the  election  of  such  delegates  was  in  the 
Muskingum  Conference  accomplished  under  the  protest  of  a 
strong  minority,  led  by  John  Burns,  about  the  same  time.  A 
Convention  of  seventy  lay-delegates  met  at  Lebanon,  0.,  in  con- 
nection with  the  Cincinnati  Conference  of  the  old  Church,  in 
September,  1858,  which  passed  a  series  of  resolves  demanding 
lay-delegation  from  the  next  General  Conference.  Obituary  of 
Rev.  Jeremiah  Swain  of  Georgia,  early  Reformer,  November  6, 
1858.  The  Layman's  Advocate,  a  small  periodical,  was  issued 
in  New  York,  for  a  season,  November,  1858,  in  support  of  the 
movement  for  lay-representation  in  the  old  Church. 

Pursuant  to  notice  a  "  General  Convention  of  Delegates  from 
the  Northern  and  Western  Conferences  of  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church"  was  held  at  Springfield,  0.,  November  10-16,  1858. 
The  proceedings  make  an  octavo  pamphlet  of  forty  pages.  Rev. 
George  Brown  was  elected  President,  and  W.  H.  Miller  and  R. 
Rose,  Secretaries.  The  following  is  a  list  of  the  Conferences, 
with  the  delegates :  — 


Boston 


Ministers 


Laymen 
Geo.  Pierce  ^ 


J.  M.  Mayall 


New  York  and  Vermont 


W.  H.  Miller 
J.  J.  Smith 


Thos.  Brown 
C.  Tomkins 


Onondaga 


Ira  H.  Hogan 

*  Bassett's  *' : 
VOL.  II  —  2f 


History,"  p. 


201. 


G.  White 


1  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
N.  Palmiter 

R.  E.  Gorman  1 


G.  Brown 
Jas.  Robison 
Jno.  Scott 


Geo.  Clancy 
H.  Heberling 
J.  S.  Thrap 
R,  Andrew  1 
J.  Nichols  1 
A.  Abbott  1 


J.  M.  Young 
R.  Rose 
A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  J.  White 
W.  R.  Parsons 


R.  C.  Lanning 


A.  Acheson 


E.  Homer  1 


S.  Morrison 
T.  Shipp 


P.  J.  Strong 


G.  Wright  1 


Joel  Dalby 


Genesee 

Laymen 
B.  A.  Nichols  1 

Pennsylvania 

Wm.  Bartly  i 

Pittsburgh 

John  Redman 

G.  W.  Pogue 
S.  Homer  1 

Muskingum 

J.  Fordyce 
J.  Ashton 
I.  Cassell 

H.  Fullertoni 
J.  D.  Daton 
A.  W.  Beattyi 

Ohio 

R.  D.  Rowsey 
S.  Graham 

F.  A.  Finley 
J.  K.  Ogden 
J.  M.  Johnson 

Michigan 

G.  J.  Daniels 

Western  Michigan 

T.  Hinmani 

Wabash 

N.  T.  Caterlin 

Indiana 

Wm.  Smith 
E.  Bassett 

North  Illinois 

J.  W.  Bush 

South  Illinois 

J.  Laugheadi 

Illinois 

J.  Comielly 

1  Absent. 


''SUSPENSION  OF  OFFICIAL  RELATIONS'' 


435 


Iowa 


G.  Wheatleyi 


Ministers 


Laymen 
J.  Youngman^ 


NoBTH  Iowa 


J.  J.  Watson 


Thos.  Snyder 


Wisconsin 


J.  W.  Fried  1 


G.  W.  Williams  1 


Minnesota 


S.  Jones  1 


R.  Freeman  1 


Total,  delegates  elect,  sixty-four.  Number  in  attendance,  forty -four,  viz. : 
twenty-three  ministers  and  twenty-one  laymen. 

A  new  Historical  Preface  for  the  Discipline  was  offered  by 
A.  H.  Bassett,  reciting  the  action  of  the  Church  upon  the  slavery 
question  from  the  beginning  to  date,  which  was  subsequently 
adopted.  A  Committee  on  Business  recommended  five  subjects, 
to  which  were  added  three  others,  and  then  considered  in  order. 
They  were  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant,  Book  Department, 
Financial  Department  and  Location  of  Concern,  Communication, 
Eelations  and  Revisions,  Missions,  Education,  Temperance.  The 
Illinois  Conference  proposed  that  the  decision  of  separation  should 
be  delayed  one  year,  and  it  was  referred,  as  well  as  other  objections, 
to  the  proposed  action  of  the  Convention ;  but  they  died  in  com- 
mittee. The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Eelations,  etc.,  was 
taken  up  and  acted  upon  item  by  item.  On  suspension  the  report 
proposed  that  it  be  "now  and  forever  suspended. Dr.  Brown 
amended  "until  the  evil  complained  of  be  removed."  John 
Scott  had  inserted  the  word  "slavery."  And  Dr.  Brown  further 
amended,  "  and  they  agree  to  put  back  the  general  interests,  and 
work  with  their  brethren  of  the  West  and  North  in  sustaining 
them  under  the  Constitution."  The  paper  as  amended  was  then 
passed,  the  delegates  from  Illinois  alone  voting  in  the  negative, 
according  to  their  instructions.  The  chairman  of  the  committee 
was  George  Clancy,  and,  after  reciting  certain  transactions  in- 
volved in  the  former  negotiations,  declared  that  the  late  "  Gen- 
eral Conference"  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  was  "a 
legal  nullity,"  and,  therefore,  the  Church  had  been  resolved  into 
its  original  elements  as  Associated  Methodist  Churches,  which 
made  it  competent  for  independent  action  by  the  Conferences 


1  Absent. 


436 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


represented.  The  gist  of  the  paper  is,  "Therefore,  resolved, 
that  indisputable  facts,  the  inductions  of  sound  logic,  the  dictates 
of  Christian  prudence,  and  an  enlightened  sense  of  our  duty  to 
God  and  man,  justify  and  warrant  this  Convention,  in  the  name 
of  the  several  Annual  Conferences  herein  represented,  to  now 
declare  all  official  connection,  cooperation,  and  official  fellowship 
with  and  between  said  conferences,  and  such  conferences  and 
churches,  within  the  Methodist  Protestant  Association,  as  prac- 
tise or  tolerate  slaveholding  and  slave-trading,  as  specified  in 
said  Memorial,  to  be  suspended  until  the  evil  of  slavery  com- 
plained of  be  removed;  and  they  agree  to  put  back  the  general 
interests,  and  work  with  their  brethren  of  the  West  and  North 
in  sustaining  them  under  the  Constitution." 

Thus  the  problem  was  solved.  Rev.  Dr.  John  Scott,  one  of 
few  surviving  members  of  this  Convention  and  an  active  partici- 
pant, says,  in  his  "Fifty  Years,"  1893,  that  "whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  action  of  this  Convention  it  was  not  intended  to  be  a 
withdrawal  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  but  a  sus- 
pension of  official  intercourse  and  the  adoption  of  such  changes, 
for  the  time  being,  as  were  essential  to  our  life  as  a  church.  Our 
action  was  designed  to  be  temporary,  'until  the  evil  of  slavery 
complained  of  be  removed.'"  The  committee  further  reported 
amendments  to  the  Discipline.  The  word  "  white  "  was  stricken 
out  of  Article  XII.,  sections  1st  and  2d;  also  fourth  section  of 
Article  VII.,  providing  for  the  admission  and  government  of  col- 
ored members,  and  terms  of  suffrage,  and  that  the  ecclesiastical 
powers  shall  not  assume  to  interfere  with  the  powers  of  the  civil 
government  or  the  operation  of  the  civil  laws,  etc.  An  item 
was  inserted,  strongly  worded,  against  slavery.  The  questions : 
"  What  right  has  this  Convention  to  make  such  changes ; "  and 
"Should  not  such  changes  be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  laity 
in  the  churches?"  are  argued  and  settled  in  harmony  witli  the 
Convention.  On  this  Dr.  John  Scott,  in  his  last  book,  says: 
"  This  action  was  based  upon  an  absolute  necessity.  It  was  this 
or  ecclesiastical  death.  Some  claimed  that  the  action  was  war- 
ranted by  the  Constitution,  Article  VII.,  section  4th,  .  .  .  but 
this  did  not  cover  the  case.  Its  only  justification  was  its  neces- 
sity." In  this  view  there  is  now  no  dissent.  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Paris  of  North  Carolina,  a  visitor  at  the  Lynchburg  General  Con- 
ference and  a  careful  note-taker,  affirmed,  not  long  after,  that  on 
the  floor,  in  answer  to  an  interrogation  on  this  point.  Collier  said, 
"We  do  not  claim  it  to  be  Constitutional." 


AMENDMENTS  TO  TUE  CONSTITUTION  437 


Rev.  A.  H.  Bassett  was  elected  Editor  and  Book  Agent  by  "  an 
almost  unanimous  vote."  Rev.  C.  Prindle  of  the  Wesleyan 
Methodists,  having  been  introduced  officially,  proposed  affiliation 
and  union  if  desired,^  and  suggested  that  a  joint  committee  be 
named  to  compile  a  new  hymn  book  for  the  two  organizations; 
which  was  approved,  as  also  the  publication  of  a  new  Discipline. 
The  Finance  Committee,  through  J.  S.  Thrap,  rendered  the  re- 
port of  the  Book  Committee,  from  which  net  assets  were  claimed 
of  f 5195.92,  including  {^3000  due  on  account  of  the  church  paper. 
A  claim  of  $2170.03  due  Bassett  on  final  settlement  for  his  plant 
and  interest  in  the  Western  paper  was  also  deducted.  A  new 
Board  of  Missions  was  elected,  John  Scott,  Chairman;  and  the 
Missionary  and  Sabbath-School  Journal  ordered  continued.  Strong 
resolutions  on  temperance  were  passed.  Another  Convention  was 
called  for  November,  second  Wednesday,  1860,  in  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
The  question,  "  Shall  the  Convention  appoint  the  meeting  of  a 
General  Conference,  as  the  central  government  of  this  Confedera- 
tion?" etc.,  was  referred  to  the  Annual  Conferences.  The  ratio 
of  representation  was  fixed  at  one  of  each  class  in  every  thousand 
members.  The  names  and  boundaries  of  the  "Conferences  with 
which  we  have  suspended  relations,"  were  to  be  left  out  of  the 
new  Discipline.  The  Committee  on  Education  reported  a  com- 
mendation of  the  University  of  the  Annual  Conferences  of  Illinois. 
The  Convention  adjourned,  with  prayer  by  the  President,  Novem- 
ber 16,  1858.  In  the  East  and  South  these  proceedings,  taken 
together,  were  declared  a  secession  from  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church.  The  continental  character  of  the  denomination  was 
broken,  and  each  section  went  on  its  way  striving,  under  serious 
disabilities,  to  overcome  the  local  besetments  and  obstructions 
with  which  they  were  environed.  That  both  did  not  disintegrate 
is  a  marvellous  exhibition  of  the  inherent  vitality  of  the  lay- 
representation  principle  in  the  new  Methodism.  Whatever 
individuals  may  have  felt,  and  at  times  displayed,  either  at 
Lynchburg  or  at  Springfield,  there  was  no  official  bitterness  or 
unchristian  alienation.  It  made  a  reunion  possible  after  a  sepa- 
ration of  a  score  of  years  —  a  restoration  of  the  only  true  con- 
tinental Methodism  in  the  land. 

1  He  was  one  of  a  Committee  of  Fraternization  from  the  Wesleyans,  and  a  like 
committee  was  appointed  by  the  Convention  to  meet  with  them  and  confer. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


Influential  opposition  in  the  North  and  West  to  the  Springfield  Convention  doings 
—  Obituaries  of  original  Reformers :  Winfree  and  Doughty ;  Dennis  B.  Dorsey, 
Sr. ;  William  S.  Stockton ;  and  others  —  Abel  Stevens,  editor  of  the  New  York 
Christian  Advocate,  pronounces  for  lay-representation  in  annual  and  general 
conferences ;  rebuked  by  the  ensuing  General  Conference  for  this  position  and 
liberal  views  as  to  the  border  Conferences  by  a  defeat  as  editor ;  the  New  York 
Methodist  established  by  Drs.  Crooks  and  M'Clintock  as  the  organ  of  these 
views— New  hymn  book  and  Catechisms  of  the  Church  announced —  First 
courtship  of  the  Wesleyans  and  the  brethren  West  and  North;  Allegheny 
Seminary  at  Sharpsburg,  Pa. ;  General  Convention  North  and  AVest  at  Pitts- 
burgh, Pa.,  1860;  synopsis  of  its  doings  — The  Methodist  Protestant  Church 
meantime  ;  the  Civil  War  inaugurated ;  death  of  E.  Yeates  Reese,  with  sketch 
of  him ;  War  Secretary  Stanton  and  his  favor  to  his  mother's  Church  —  Cin- 
cinnati Convention  North  and  West,  1862 ;  roster  of  members  ;  synopsis  of  its 
doings ;  extreme  action  against  the  East  and  South ;  consideration  of  it,  with 
opinions  impartially  presented. 

The  action  of  the  Springfield  Convention  in  "  suspending  offi- 
cial relations  "  with  the  Conferences  East  and  South  was  strenu- 
ously opposed  by  a  small  but  influential  minority  in  the  North  and 
A¥est.  Eev.  John  Burns  of  the  Muskingum  Conference  issued  a 
Manifesto  in  his  own  behalf  and  that  of  others  agreeing  with  him 
against  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention  as  a  separation  from 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  (See  Baltimore  paper,  Janu- 
ary 8,  1859.^)  In  September,  1859,  the  Illinois  Conference, 
which  had  preferred  a  request  to  the  Convention  that  separation 
should  be  delayed  one  year  and  was  disregarded,  had  a  warm  dis- 
cussion when  it  assembled,  with  the  result  of  a  division  and  the 
organization  of  a  small  Conference  adhering  to  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church.  The  Muskingum  Conference,  when  it  assem- 
bled, October,  1859,  found  a  "  minority  "  so  determined  in  their 
opposition  to  separation  that  it  was  found  advisable  to  treat  with 
them  through  a  "Committee  of  Conciliation."    In  a  summary 

1  Conditioned  on  the  further  step  of  "  separation  "  through  a  union  with  the 
Wesleyans,  now  broached,  his  principal  allegation  was,  that  such  a  step  would  be 
legally  a  secession  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  gave  warning  as 
to  its  effect  upon  church  property,  etc.,  in  the  v/ords,  "all  property  deeded  ol 
chartered  to  societies  or  conferences  belongs  to  those  who  remain." 

438 


DECEASE  OF  DENNIS  B.  DORSET 


439 


review  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Collins  of  the  separating  Conferences,  in 
the  Baltimore  paper,  February  11,  1860,  much  dissatisfaction  was 
exhibited.  But  the  John  Brown  raid  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Va., 
October,  1859,  and  the  presages  of  resistance  by  force  of  arms  to 
the  Lincoln  administration,  culminating  with  the  assault  on  Fort 
Sumter  by  South  Carolina,  quelled  into  silence  or  changed  the 
opinions  of  this  dissenting  class. 

Christopher  Winfree  of  Lynchburg,  Va.,  one  of  the  Expelled 
Reformers  of  that  town,  departed  this  life  in  assured  hope, 
obituary  January  15,  1859.  Dr.  Gamaliel  Bailey,  early  editor  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant,  deceased  on  steamer  Arago,  outward 
voyage,  July  2,  1859,  an  ardent  and  consistent  abolitionist. 
Colonel  William  Doughty,  of  Georgetown,  D.  C,  an  early  Re- 
former, deceased  September  10,  1859.  Generous  in  life,  he  left 
by  will  various  bequests,  among  them  one  to  the  Superannuated 
Fund  Society  of  the  Maryland  Conference.  Rev.  Dennis  B.  Dor- 
sey,  M.D.,  died  March  18, 1860.  He  was  born  December  28, 1799, 
in  Baltimore  County,  Md.  Early  in  life  he  removed  with  his 
parents  to  Wellsburgh,  Va.,  and  at  fifteen  years  of  age  lost  his 
father,  leaving  the  mother  and  three  sisters  dependent  upon 
his  labors.  He  accepted  manfully  the  task  and  labored  at  his 
trade  as  a  carpenter,  meanwhile  picking  up  the  rudiments  of  an 
education.  In  his  seventeenth  year  he  was  converted,  and  in  his 
twentieth  received  into  the  itinerancy  of  the  Baltimore  Con- 
ference. In  1827  he  was  "suspended"  for  advocating  Reform 
principles  and  circulating  its  literature,  and  in  1828  was  the  first 
Reform  martyr.  His  subsequent  career  makes  a  section  of  this 
History.  As  a  self-made  man  his  literary  acquirements,  as 
exhibited  in  a  facile  pen  and  preaching  ability,  were  of  a  high 
order.  As  editor  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  as  successful  physician, 
as  earnest  and  logical  preacher, —  in  all  relations  he  was  con- 
spicuous and  influential.  A  life-long  invalid,  he  alternated  be- 
tween the  itinerancy  and  secular  employ,  and  spent  his  closing 
years  with  his  son,  D.  B.,  Jr.,  at  Fairmont,  W.  Va.  Pain,  pov- 
erty, and  sorrow  were  his  heritage.  Several  times  during  his 
last  illness  he  said  with  emphasis  to  his  children,  as  in  recollec- 
tion of  the  wrongs  done  him  in  old  Church  relations,  "  Remember, 
I  forgive  everybody  that  ever  offended  me,  and  I  desire  all  to  for- 
give me."  No  shadow  darkened  his  spiritual  sky.  He  anticipated 
heaven,  "  I  hope  before  long  to  see  the  celestial  city,  whose  glory 
shines  afar  off."  When  his  pulse  had  nearly  ceased,  he  drew  Hon. 
F.  H.  Pierpont  close  to  him,  and  said  with  much  difiiculty,  "  I 


440 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


put  my  trust  in  the  Lord,  I  believe  I  shall  never  be  confounded/' 
A  discourse  commemorative  of  his  life  and  labors  was  preached 
at  his  funeral  by  Dr.  E.  Yeates  Keese,  editor  of  the  Baltimore 
paper,  at  Fairmont,  and  his  remains  were  laid  to  rest  in  its 
cemetery,  March  20,  1860.  His  son  and  namesake  also  delivered 
subsequently  a  discourse  in  his  memory;  both  were  published, 
and  copies  are  before  the  writer.  For  an  extended  sketch  see 
Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  153-173.  Rev.  Caswell  Drake,  an 
early  Reformer  of  North  Carolina,  obituary  May  19,  18G0.  Rev. 
J.  F.  Speight,  early  Reformer  of  Korth  Carolina,  obituary  Sep- 
tember, 1860,  also  January  12,  1861.  He  was  one  of  the  noblest 
and  most  active  of  the  band  of  Reformers  who  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  North  Carolina  Conference.  Rev.  Elisha  Lott,  father  of 
the  Mississippi  Conference,  and  a  liberal  giver  on  a  small  com- 
petence, and  an  indefatigable  worker  in  the  cause  of  Christ  and 
Methodist  Reform,  obituary  October  13,  1860. 

William  S.  Stockton  departed  this  life  November  20,  1860. 
He  was  born  April  8,  1785,  at  Burlington,  N.  J.,  and  was  a 
descendant  of  two  good  families, —  the  Stocktons,  notable  in 
Church  and  State,  and  the  Gardiners,  honorably  known  in  colonial 
times.  Classically  educated  and  early  religious,  he  united  with 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  in  his  house  at  Easton,  Pa., 
the  first  Methodist  class  of  that  town  was  held.  He  spent  the 
early  years  of  his  married  life  in  the  store  of  his  uncle  at  Trenton, 
then  the  principal  bookseller  of  the  city.  In  that  place,  in  1821, 
he  issued  the  Wesleyan  Repository,  and  in  1822  he  removed  to 
Philadelphia,  where  he  lived  the  most  of  his  days.  He  was, 
next  to  Snethen,  the  first  to  advocate  Methodist  Reform,  and 
antedated  even  him  as  a  publisher  of  such  opinions.  His  career 
as  a  Reformer  is  preserved  in  these  pages,  and  this  sketch  has 
been  anticipated  in  many  particulars  of  moment.  For  many  years 
he  was  in  charge  of  Blockely  Almshouse,  Philadelphia,  where  his 
executive  abilities  had  full  and  successful  play.  A  voracious 
reader  and  a  prolific  writer,  of  independent  mould  of  mind  and 
spotless  purity  of  character,  his  memory  is  blessed  wherever 
known.  Removing  to  Burlington,  N.  J.,  in  his  seventy-fifth 
year,  an  accident  fractured  his  thigh  and  brought  him  to  a  bed 
from  which  he  never  rose  again.  Surrounded  by  wife,  children, 
and  relatives,  he  peacefully  closed  his  mortal  pilgrimage.  On  the 
22d  of  November,  1860,  his  remains  were  brought  to  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  church  of  the  town,  and  Rev.  J.  G.  Wilson,  a  life- 
long friend,  delivered  a  funeral  discourse,  assisted  by  others,  and 


DECEASE  OF  WILLIAM  S.  STOCKTON  441 


his  body  was  deposited  in  the  cemetery  beside  his  father  and  first 
wife.    For  a  full  sketch,  see  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  48-59. 

Dr.  Abel  Stevens,  editor  of  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate, 
had  since  his  installation  advocated  lay-delegation,  now,  January, 
1859,  became  outspoken,  and  declared  for  "  a  fair  and  square  lay- 
representation  in  both  the  annual  and  general  conferences."  A 
month  after,  at  Geneva,  N.  Y.,  a  Layman's  Association  assem- 
bled and  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of  representation  in  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  In  the  following  October  a  com- 
mittee on  lay-delegation  in  the  Cincinnati  Conference  of  the  old 
Church  reported  favorably,  and  the  report  was  adopted.  A  large 
meeting  of  laymen  urging  representation  convened  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  in  the  Baltimore  Conference  Rev.  Alfred  Griffith,  now 
an  aged  man,  revived  his  "radical"  memories,  and  advocated  lay- 
representation.  It  was  in  the  air,  but  officialism,  that  potency 
in  a  hierarchy,  put  an  extinguisher  upon  the  movement,  as  it  had 
done  in  1820-30.  When  the  General  Conference  had  assembled 
at  Buffalo,  jST.Y.,  in  May,  1860,  the  memorials  poured  in,  this  time 
not  a  few  of  them,  notably  one  from  Philadelphia,  demanding 
representation  as  a  right  as  well  as  an  expediency.  The  bishops 
in  their  Address  for  the  first  time  in  Episcopal  history  treated 
the  subject  with  a  degree  of  liberality.  It  was  at  this  Conference 
also  that  extreme  measures  as  to  slaveholding  were  passed.  The 
committee  on  the  memorials  for  lay-delegation,  while  proposing 
nothing,  was  more  cautious  and  recommended  that  it  be  approved 
so  soon  as  the  voice  of  the  Church  can  be  ascertained  as  in  favor 
of  it.  Again  the  hopes  of  the  pleading  laity  were  dashed,  but 
they  did  not  despair.  Dr.  Stevens,  for  conservative  views  as  to 
the  border  slaveholding  Conferences,  and  for  liberal  views  as  to 
lay -representation,  was  defeated  for  the  editorship.  It  was  done 
by  inimical  officialism.  Soon  thereafter  the  New  York  Methodist 
was  inaugurated  by  Rev.  Drs.  Crooks  and  M'Clintock,  two  of  the 
ablest  men  of  the  ministry,  and  it  took  up  the  discarded  positions 
on  both  subjects,  and  for  a  series  of  years  did  valiant  service  with 
a  strong  support  from  the  laity  in  the  States  of  New  York,  Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware,  and  Maryland.  As  already  foreshadowed, 
the  Civil  War  diverted  attention,  and  a  decade  of  years  passed 
before  lay-representation  again  came  boldly  to  the  front.  It 
illustrated  the  fact  not  only  that  large  bodies  move  slowly  in  the 
direction  of  innovations  upon  established  usages,  but  also  the 
tenacity  with  which  clerical  power  has  ever  been  retained  under 
hierarchical  auspices. 


442 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


In  the  autumn  of  1859  the  new  hymn  book,  and  the  new  Cate- 
chisms ordered  by  the  General  Conference  of  1858,  were  announced 
ready  for  sale.  Dr.  E.  Yeates  Keese  was  the  principal  com- 
piler of  the  former,  and  Dr.  Francis  Waters  the  sole  compiler 
of  the  latter.  The  Methodist  Protestant  Sentinel,  published  by 
J.  E.  P.  Dorsey,  and  edited  by  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  Jr.,  was  estab- 
lished at  Fairmont,  Va.  It  was  under  the  auspices  of  the  West 
Virginia  Conference,  and  the  editor  wielded  a  trenchant  but  grace- 
ful pen.  It  continued  about  a  year,  when  it  was  offered  to  the 
West  Virginia  Conference  on  fair  terms  and  was  accepted.  The 
plant  was  removed  to  Morgantown,  with  Rev.  Dr.  Laishley  as 
editor  of  the  West  Virginia  Methodist  Protestant,  but  it  did  not 
long  survive.  The  committee  of  five  of  the  Springfield  Conven- 
tion to  permanently  locate  the  Western  Methodist  Protestant, 
selected  Springfield,  and  the  Board  of  Trust  determined  to  erect 
suitable  buildings  for  its  use.  Rev.  J.  B.  Walker  was  appointed 
soliciting  agent;  liberal  subscriptions  were  made;  $1100  by  the 
Ohio  Conference.  In  March,  1860,  a  lot  was  purchased  and  a 
brick  building  erected  sixty  by  thirty-two  feet,  three  stories. 
The  two  committees  of  the  Wesleyan  and  the  separated  Confer- 
ences of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  met  as  a  committee 
of  conference  in  the  First  church,  Pittsburgh,  and  continued  in 
session  for  two  or  three  days.  The  joint  hymn  book  proposed  for 
the  two  organizations  was  the  principal  subject,  and  as  a  finality 
Dr.  George  Brown  was  appointed  to  compile  a  book,  which  he  did. 
The  agent  of  the  Wesleyan  Church  could  not  agree  to  publish  it 
before  the  meeting  of  their  General  Conference,  and  the  West 
could  not  wait.  It  was  pushed  to  publication  by  a  private  firm  in 
Cincinnati,  and  sold  among  Methodist  Protestants  quite  freely. 
The  Wesleyans  were  cautious,  so  that  nothing  came  of  this  first 
courtship. 

The  Pittsburgh  Conference  took  steps  to  establish  a  seminary 
for  the  education  of  young  preachers,  a  sum  of  $1500  having  been 
given  in  trust  for  that  purpose  by  Charles  Avery.  Dr.  John 
Scott  was  the  inspiration  of  the  movement,  and  with  the  coopera- 
tion of  the  Conference  a  good  substantial  brick  building  was 
erected  at  Sharpsburg,  Pa.,  and  the  Allegheny  Seminary  was 
opened  1861-62,  and  continued  with  varying  success  until  Adrian 
College  came  under  the  care  of  the  W'^stern  brethren.  Seven 
thousand  dollars  remained  from  the  sale  of  the  building,  the 
interest  of  which  is  pledged  to  the  Board  of  Ministerial  Educa- 
tion.   Rev.  G.  B.  ^IcElroy  was  for  some  time  Principal,  and 


GENERAL  CONVENTION  OF  1860 


443 


Kev.  Dr.  Collier  was  associated  with  Dr.  Scott  in  the  active 
labors  of  building,  etc.*  "In  1860  a  small  Conference  was  or- 
ganized in  Nebraska,  which  was  then  just  rising  into  statehood. 
The  nucleus  of  the  organization  was  chiefly  John  M.  Young,  who 
had  been  an  early  and  sacrificing  laborer  in  the  Ohio  Conference, 
William  S.  Horn  from  Illinois,  and  Hugh  Doyle,  formerly  of 
the  Maryland  Conference.  Subsequently  Cyrus  Carter,  Daniel 
Kinney,  John  Lamb,  C.  S.  Bradley,  and  J.  W.  Davis  from  Ohio, 
and  others  good  and  true,  were  added  to  their  numbers."  f  In 
the  Baltimore  official  paper  for  December  15,  1860,  there  is  an 
interesting  and  reliable  historical  sketch  of  Methodist  Protes- 
tantism in  the  empire  state  of  Texas.  In  the  autumn  of  this  year 
the  Colorado  and  the  McCaine  Conferences  were  separated  from 
the  Texas.  Owing  to  its  vast  territory  nowhere  has  the  Church 
work  been  subject  to  so  many  divisions,  reunions,  and  separations 
for  local  convenience  as  in  this  State,  so  that  space  would  fail  to 
keep  the  run  of  them;  and  nowhere  have  more  faithful  pioneers 
labored  at  every  sacrifice,  eminent  among  whom  were  Eev.  Messrs. 
Boyd,  Rosser,  Aaron,  Miller,  Biddison,  and  others  to  be  noticed 
in  current  connections. 

"  Proceedings  of  the  General  Convention  of  delegates  from  the 
Northern  and  Western  Conferences  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  held  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  November  14-19,  1860."  This 
is  the  title-page  of  the  printed  Minutes,  issued  in  1862  by  the 
Book  Concern  at  Springfield,  0.  Eev.  Dr.  George  Brown  was 
elected  President,  and  J.  J.  White,  Secretary.  The  following  is 
a  list  of  the  Conferences  represented  and  the  delegates  elected :  — 


Boston 


Ministers 
J.  M.  Mayall 


Laymen 
A.  B.  Maxim 


New  York  and  Vermont 


J.  J.  Smith 
W.  H.  Miller 


C.  Tomkins 
Th.  Brown  i 


New  Jersey 


T.  H.  Colhouer 


L.  L.  Campbein 


Onondaga 


D.  Cooki 


G.  White  1 


*  For  full  details  of  its  inception,  progress,  and  ending,  see  Dr.  Scott's  "Fifty 
Years." 

t  Bassett's  "  History,"  p.  230,  revised  edition.  i  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


3Iinisters 
E.  A.  Wheat  1 


J.  K.  Helmbold 


G.  Brown 
W.  Reeves 

H.  Palmer 


J.  Burns 

G.  Clancy 

W.  H.  MarshaU 

J.  S.  Thrap 

E.  S.  Hoaglandi 

A.  Abbott  1 


W.  R.  Parsons 
J,  Kost 
A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  J.  White 
J.  B.  Walker 


S.  Morrison 


J.  C.  Wright 


Joshua  Leach  ^ 


H.  H.  Hulbert 


J.  P.  Johnston 


C.  Gray 


R.  Wright  1 


Joel  Dalbey 


Genesee 

Laymen 
Ira  Gary  i 

Pennsylvania 

S.  Whitakeri 

Pittsburgh 

H.  C.  Swart  1 
J.  Redman 
W.  J.  Troth 

Muskingum 

J.  D.  Tingle  1 

H.  Cassell 

I.  Hull! 

R.  Beckham 
J.  D.  Datoni 
S.  Cuppi 

Ohio 

J.  Whetstone 
J.  M.  Johnson 
S.  Graham  1 
J.  G.  Rockhill 

F.  A.  Fmley 

Indiana 

A.  D.  Amos 

Wabash 

A.  D.  Whitford 

Michigan 

G.  J.  Daniels  1 

Western  Michigan 

R.  Ramsby 

Illinois 

J.  Lingle 
North  Illinois 

Wm.  Culleni 

South  Illinois 

J.  Laugheadi 

North  Iowa 

O.  M.  Culver  i 

1  Absent. 


BUSINESS  OF  THE  CONVENTION 


445 


Minnesota 


Ministers 
S.  Jones  1 


Laymen 
C.  Clossoni 


Nebraska  Mission 


J.  M.  Young 


Dr.  K.  Perry  i 


Iowa,  Wisconsin,  and  Maine  Conferences  were  not  reported. 
Thirty-eight  out  of  sixty-two  were  present. 

A  committee  on  subjects  outlined  the  business,  and  committees 
were  appointed  on  each  department.  A  number  of  the  Conferences 
had  given  their  delegates  special  instructions.  George  Clancy, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  "Present  and  Future  Policy  of 
the  Church,"  reported  that  a  majority  of  the  Annual  Conferences 
had  not  authorized  the  Convention  to  make  changes  in  either  the 
"constitution  or  discipline."  Afterward  a  call  of  the  roll  of  Con- 
ferences represented  showed  that  fourteen  believed  themselves 
instructed  to  make  changes  and  four  did  not,  but  the  Convention 
adjourned  without  making  any  changes.  The  Editor  and  Book 
Agent  reported  in  detail,  showing  the  Western  paper  out  of  debt. 
A  report  on  the  Editorial  Department  recommended  that  the  finan- 
cial and  editorial  departments  be  separated,  etc.  The  report  of 
the  committee  on  the  Fraternal  Messengers  from  the  Wesleyan 
Church  expressed  regret  at  their  personal  absence,  and  recom- 
mended that  a  delegate  be  appointed  to  their  next  General  Con- 
ference. The  election  of  Editor  resulted  in  the  choice  of  George 
Brown  by  thirty-four  out  of  fifty-seven  votes,  indicating  that 
visiting  members  were  allowed  the  ballot.  A.  H.  Bassett  was 
elected  Book  Agent  by  a  vote  of  thirty-three  out  of  sixty-one 
ballots.  Both  were,  however,  declared  "unanimously  elected  by 
a  rising  vote."  The  salary  of  the  editor  was  fixed  at  ^700,  and 
that  of  the  agent  at  ^600.  The  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Statistics  showed:  614  itinerants,  455  unstationed  ministers, 
36,099  members,  504  houses  of  worship,  96  parsonages,  and  value 
of  church  property  |639,655.  As  compared  with  the  estimated 
statistics  prepared  for  the  Convention  of  1858,  it  showed  a  gain 
of  80  itinerants,  25  churches,  593  members,  and  $88,000  of  church 
property,  accounted  for  in  part  by  including  the  New  Jersey  Con- 
ference. J.  S.  Thrap  of  the  Committee  on  Book  Concern  reported 
that  it  was  out  of  debt,  with  the  stereotype  plates  of  the  hymn 
book  to  be  added  to  the  assets  of  1858,  and  made  sundry 


1  Absent. 


446  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


recommendations  to  the  management.  Eev.  Dr.  J.  Kost  of  the 
Committee  on  Education  reported  on  the  ISTorth  Illinois  University 
at  Henry,  under  the  superintendence  of  Prof.  G.  B.  McElroy, 
property  worth  $15,000,  debt  $6000.  Also  an  offer  from  the 
citizens  of  Chillicothe,  0.,  for  a  college  under  certain  condi- 
tions. Also  the  Allegheny  Seminary,  Drs.  Scott  and  Collier  to 
couduct  the  theological  department.  The  Missionary  and.  Sunday- 
School  Journal,  now  edited  and  conducted  by  E,ev.  Dr.  Collier, 
was  approved.  The  Committee  on  Missions  made  recommenda- 
tions, and  a  new  Board  was  elected,  located  at  Pittsburgh.  The 
Committee  on  Future  Policy  reported  a  recital  of  the  preliminary 
steps  leading  to  the  doings  of  the  Convention  of  1858,  and  then 
declared :  "  This  suspension  was  an  official  withdrawal  of  all  offi- 
cial countenance  to  the  evils  deprecated ;  and  the  resolution  was 
adopted  as  a  bond  of  union  among  the  Northern  conferences. 
Now  it  would  seem  clear  as  the  light  of  day,  that  while  the  said 
conferences  in  good  faith  adhere  to  the  platform  adopted,  as 
above,  they  are  an  organized  brotherhood,  agreeing  to  work  under 
the  Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  and  are  as  loyal  Methodist  Protestants  as  the  Southern 
section  possibly  can  be."  A  Convention  with  full  powers  to 
legislate  on  the  Constitution  and  Discipline  was  called  for  the 
first  Wednesday  of  November,  1862,  at  Cincinnati,  0.,  the  rate 
of  representation  to  be  one  of  each  class  for  every  one  thousand 
members  and  above  six  hundred  as  a  fraction.  The  Convention 
then  adjourned.  There  are  appended  five  closely  printed  pages 
by  A.  H.  Bassett,  ''Our  Position  Vindicated,"  and  also  a  state- 
ment by  him  as  to  the  Western  paper  and  Book  Concern. 

Meanwhile  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  the  East  and 
South  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  its  way,  but  was  not  unaffected 
by  the  serious  difficulties  confronting  it.  In  its  border  territory, 
including  the  whole  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  its  environment 
called  for  the  most  discreet  official  conduct.  Laymen's  conven- 
tions were  held  in  the  early  spring  of  1861,  both  in  Baltimore 
and  in  Staunton,  Va.,  to  consider  the  "New  Chapter"  on  slavery 
promulgated  by  the  Buffalo  Conference  of  the  old  Church.  Pro- 
tests against  its  extreme  action  were  passed,  and  open  rebellion 
in  many  individual  cases  occurred  in  Baltimore  and  other  places, 
and  inaugurated  the  Independent  ]\Iethodist  movement  in  the 
former  city  under  Charles  J.  Baker.  Old  prejudices  barred  a 
union  of  these  people  with  the  new  Church  at  the  time.  The 
strongholds  of  the  Reformed  Church  outside  of  Maryland  were 


CONDUCT  OF  THE  METHODIST  PROTESTANT  447 


Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi.  They 
were  under  the  leadership  of  able  and  commanding  men,  both 
ministers  and  laymen;  Virginia,  particularly,  was  supporting  the 
Lynchburg  College,  and  had  the  next  largest  subscription  list  to 
Maryland  itself  of  the  Book  Concern  and  official  paper.  The 
latter  had  been  conducted  by  its  directory  and  editor  on  the  non- 
partisan basis  as  to  political  questions, —  as  antislavery  had  now 
become  an  organized  and  successful  political  party,  —  and  had 
just  been  enlarged,  with  a  font  of  new  type,  and  other  improve- 
ments, while  the  Book  Concern  was  in  fair  condition  financially. 
Its  conservative  and  non-partisan  position  was  generally  ap- 
proved, and  not  a  few  Christians  of  other  denominations  came  to 
its  support  as  a  religious  journal  pure  and  simple.  The  Maryland 
Conference,  under  whose  special  care  it  had  been  placed  by  the 
Convention  of  Conferences,  taking  warning  from  the  disruption 
of  the  Baltimore  Conference,^  took  the  same  conservative  ground, 
and  passed  no  resolutions  compromising  this  position.  Among 
its  itinerants  were  men  of  both  parties  in  their  political  views, 
but  in  Conference  relations  they  dwelt  together  in  harmony. 

The  passage  through  Baltimore  of  the  Massachusetts  regiment, 
under  President  Lincoln's  call  for  volunteers  to  defend  the 
Capitol,  was  attended  with  riot  and  bloodshed.  The  city  was 
intensely  excited,  business  suspended,  and  the  compositors  on 
the  Methodist  Protestant  yielded  to  the  contagion,  so  that  the 
number  of  April  27  was  omitted,  the  next  being  that  of  May  11. 
The  issue  of  June  1  was  reduced  three  inches  in  size,  as  a  re- 
trenchment, while  Vol.  28,  No.  1,  began  with  the  number  of 
July  20,  1861,  to  make  up  to  the  subscribers  the  omitted  papers. 
More  than  half  its  circulation  was  south  of  the  Potomac,  and 
the  interruption  immediately  of  all  mail  facilities  reduced  its 
issue  to  less  than  two  thousand.  Its  editor  about  a  year  before 
had  met  with  the  severest  loss  of  his  life  in  the  death  of  his 
loved  wife  and  the  mother  of  his  children.  It  greatly  affected 
him,  and  for  relief,  after  the  day's  toil  was  over,  he  had  retired 
to  his  home  only  to  work  on  until  midnight  at  literary  pursuits. 

1  The  Baltimore  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  divided  on  this 
issue  in  March,  1861,  fully  one-half  of  it  revolting  against  the  General  Conference 
action,  and  organized  as  the  Baltimore  Conference.  The  Secretary  of  the  undi- 
vided hody,  adhering  to  the  Church,  South,  maintained  possession  of  the  Confer- 
ence minutes  and  records,  hut  subsequently  the  other  section  was  allowed  to 
copy  them,  and  both  have  ever  since  contended  to  be  the  original  body,  and  date 
their  minutes  with  the  same  number  of  sessions,  etc.  The  protesting  Conference 
was  received  into  the  M.  E.  Church,  South. 


448 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


It  needed  only  such  an  occasion  as  the  bursting  of  the  war-cloud 
over  him  completely  to  break  him  down.  He  lingered  through 
the  summer,  conducting  the  paper  by  the  aid  of  brother  ministers 
and  literary  friends  who  furnished  material.  He  was  haunted 
with  fearful  forebodings  of  starvation  for  himself  and  family, 
and  though  kept  under  medical  aid  and  constantly  watched  by 
loving  friends,  on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  the  14th  of  Septem- 
ber, after  having  shaved,  and  breakfasted  (asking  a  blessing  at 
the  table)  with  his  devoted  sister,  Anna  Mary,  and  his  children, 
he  went  to  his  room,  and  in  her  absence  for  a  few  moments  drew 
a  razor  across  his  throat,  severing  both  the  carotid  arteries,  and 
died  in  a  few  minutes.  Seldom  had  any  death  so  shocked  the 
whole  city.  His  funeral  took  place  on  Monday,  the  IGth  of 
September,  West  Baltimore  station,  the  audience  filling  the  edi- 
fice. Nearly  all  the  prominent  ministers  of  the  city  were  present, 
of  all  denominations,  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  the  pastor,  David  Wil- 
son, and  Kev.  Thomas  Sewell  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
making  the  addresses.  His  remains  were  deposited  in  Baltimore 
cemetery. 

Eli  Yeates  Eeese  was  born  in  Baltimore,  January  18,  1816,  and 
was  the  youngest  of  four  preacher  brothers.  He  early  embraced 
religion  and  united  with  the  Eeform  Church,  and  displayed  liter- 
ary gifts  of  a  high  order  from  his  childhood.  In  1838,  in  his 
twenty-third  year,  he  was  elected  editor  of  the  official  paper  and 
took  charge  October  20.  Reelected  in  1842,  but  receiving  the 
appointment  of  principal  of  one  of  the  male  public  schools  of  the 
city,  and  conjecturing  that  his  editorial  work  was  not  altogether 
approved,  he  resigned,  July,  1843.  In  1846  he  was  again  elected, 
and  continued  in  the  position  until  his  death,  a  period  of  nineteen 
years  and  about  two  months,  with  the  interim  of  two  years  and 
ten  months  in  1843-46.  He  was  elected  one  of  the  Board  of 
School  Commissioners,  and  filled  other  reputable  positions. 
While  not  a  learned  man  in  the  scholastic  sense,  his  knowledge 
of  English  literature  and  belle-lettres  was  perhaps  unexcelled. 
As  a  public  lecturer  on  poetry  calling  for  elocutionary  skill  he 
was  in  great  demand  at  home,  filling  the  Maryland  Institute, 
then  the  largest  hall  of  the  city,  while  abroad  his  fame  was  widen- 
ing and  brightening;  but  the  inscrutable  ways  of  Providence  cut 
him  off  in  his  prime.  The  Church  in  the  East  and  South  stag- 
gered under  the  loss;  the  hour  of  all  others  seemed  most  unpro- 
pitious.  The  manner  of  his  taking  off  will  ever  be  associated 
with  that  of  the  Christian  Scotch  scientist  and  geologist,  Hugh 


GOVERNMENT  FAVOR  TO  THE  OFFICIAL  PAPER  449 

Miller,  upon  whose  suicidal  end  he  had  so  ably  moralized  only 
a  few  years  before.  It  is  fitting  thus  that  the  memory  of  Eli 
Yeates  Reese  should  not  pass  into  oblivion,  though  blurred  with 
a  like  act.  For  an  extended  obituary  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray 
see  the  official  paper  for  November  16,  1861.  A  fine  and  accurate 
steel  engraving  of  him  is  preserved  in  the  picture  gallery  of  the 
*  Baltimore  Book  Concern.  Below  the  medium  size,  slenderly 
built,  not  weighing  over  120  pounds,  his  head  of  unusual  size 
and  finely  developed,  clean-cut  features,  large  gray  eyes,  light 
brown  hair,  and  fair  complexion,  he  would  command  inquiring 
attention  in  any  company. 

The  Directory  appointed  E.  G.  Waters,  M.D.,  Rev.  David 
Shermer,  and  Rev.  David  Wilson  an  editorial  committee,  who 
served  the  paper  without  compensation,  as  it  was  with  difficulty 
its  faithful  agent,  Thomas  W.  Ewing,  kept  up  its  publication.  In 
the  spring  of  1862  an  effort  was  made  to  reach  the  subscribers  in 
the  South.  With  this  intent  a  file  of  it  was  sent  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  War,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  with  a  request  that  it  might  be 
allowed  to  pass  through  the  lines  as  a  strictly  religious  journal 
that  did  not  discuss  the  war  issues,  and  consequently  would  give 
no  information  to  the  enemy.  In  a  short  time  an  order  was 
received  at  the  Book  Concern,  accompanied  by  a  letter,  authoriz- 
ing the  transmission  of  the  paper,  via  Fortress  Monroe,  by  flag 
of  truce,  into  Virginia,  and  commending  the  conduct  of  the  paper. 
Secretary  Stanton's  mother  was  then  and  had  been  for  many  years 
a  member  of  the  Church  in  Ohio,  and  the  paper  was  probably 
familiar  to  him  in  his  childhood.  By  a  similar  special  order 
Dr.  George  Brown  was  enabled  to  secure  the  release  of  his  son 
early  in  the  war  and  his  transit  home  to  die.  But  the  privilege 
was  of  no  avail,  as  in  a  few  weeks  it  was  reported  that  the  papers 
accumulated  at  the  outpost,  there  being  no  mail  facilities  in  the 
South  to  carry  them  forward.  Large  numbers  of  the  male  mem- 
bership of  the  Church  in  the  South  volunteered  or  were  drafted 
into  the  Southern  army,  and  the  ministers,  though  not  subject  to 
military  draft  as  in  the  North,  found  employment  as  chaplains 
and  in  the  commissary  department.  As  many  as  could  stood  to 
their  ministerial  work,  but  as  the  South  was  overrun,  devastation 
followed  in  the  path,  churches  were  burned,  or,  as  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  Va.,  turned  into  stables  for  cavalry  horses;  congregations 
assembled  fitfully,  if  at  all ;  Conferences  were  rarely  held,  though 
in  the  case  of  the  North  Carolina,  not  being  under  fire  so  closely, 
it  managed  to  continue  its  sessions  with  a  meagre  attendance  all 

VOL.  II  —  2  Q 


450  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


through  the  war.  E-ev.  Dr.  S.  B.  Southerland,  pastor  of  Charles- 
ton, S.  C,  church,  from  Maryland,  was  heard  from  only  at  very 
distant  intervals ;  communication  was  almost  entirely  cut  off,  so 
that  the  official  paper  had  little  news  outside  of  Maryland  and  the 
border.  Obituary  of  Kev.  J.  B.  Ferguson  of  Maryland,  Reformer, 
October  5,  1861.  Also  of  Rev.  Samuel  Clark  of  Illinois,  Re- 
former, February  22,  1862.  Rev.  Dr.  McGwigan  of  Virginia, 
early  Reformer,  July  12,  1862.  As  physician  and  minister  he 
was  eminent  in  his  day.  Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer  of  Maryland, 
early  local  Reformer  of  great  prominence,  and  a  member  of  the 
first  Conventions,  died  November  7,  1862. 

"Proceedings  of  the  General  Convention  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  held  at  Cincinnati,  0.,  November  5-12, 1862." 
This  is  the  title-page  of  these  minutes.  They  make  a  printed 
pamphlet  of  thirty  octavo  pages,  closely  typed.  Dr.  George 
Brown  was  elected  President,  and  J.  J.  White,  Secretary.  The 
following  are  the  Conferences  and  the  delegates  therefrom :  — 


Ministers 
J.  M.  Mayalli 

J.  J.  Smith  1 
T.  H.  Colhouer  i 
N.  R.  Swift 
0.  C.  Payne 

S.  Homani 

G.  Brown 
J.  Cowli 
J.  Scott 
J.  Robison 

T.  B.  Graham 
J.  J.  White 
R.  Rose 
J.  B.  Walker 
A.  H.  Bassett 


Boston 


New  York 


New  Jersey 


Onondaga 


Genesee 


Pennsylvania 


Pittsburgh 


Ohio 


1  Absent. 


Laymen 

D.  Halli 

C.  Tomkinsi 

E.  C.  Pancosti 
Philip  Swift 
Edward  Piper  i 

C.  Blackmani 

W.  Rineharti 
H.  T.  Reeves 
J.  Redman  1 
G.  W.  Pogue 

J.  M.  Johnson 

J.  Whetstone 
S.  Graham 
W.  Gunckel 
T.  Douglass 


CONVENTION  AT  CINCINNATI,  1862 


451 


Michigan 


Ministers 
R.  C.  Lanning 

A.  Acheson 

S.  H.  Flood 
T.  Shippi 

E.  Homer  1 

T.  Finkbine 

P.  J.  Strong 

R.  Wright 
H.  C.  Boyers 
J.  Dalbey  i 
Z.  Boynton 
J.  P.  Long 
Isaac  Chivington 
D.  Bagley 


Laymen 
C.  Cooley 


Western  Michigan 

C.  R.  Underwood 


Indiana 


Wabash 


Illinois 


Wm.  Smith 
A.  D.  Amos 


A.  D.  Whitford 


Jos.  Hughey 


North  Illinois 


J.  Woodmansee 


South  Illinois 


Iowa 


North  Iowa 


Wisconsin 


Minnesota 


Nebraska 


Oregon 


C.  Link 


R.  F.  Halli 


W.  H.  Bolton  1 


E.  D.  Warner  1 


Amos  Steers  1 


Jas.  Masters! 


L.  D.  Cross  1 


Commissioners  from  Western  Virginia 


Dr.  D.  B.  Dorsey 
J.  L.  Simpson 
S.  Young 
P.  T.  Laishleyi 


C.  Hootoni 
A.  F.  Ritchie  i 


Maine  Conference  was  not  reported.  Muskingum  Conference 
declined  the  call.    Forty  were  present  out  of  sixty-four. 

1  Absent. 


452 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Rev.  Dr.  G.  E.  Crooks,  editor  of  the  New  York  Methodist,  was 
present  as  a  visitor.  Eev.  Dr.  Asa  Mahan,  President  of  Adrian 
College,  was  semi-ofiicially  present,  representing  the  college 
authorities.  The  commissioners  from  West  Virginia  who  were 
present, —  Dorsey,  Jr.,  Simpson,  and  Young  —  were  met  by  com- 
missioners from  the  Convention,  and,  after  formalities,  were 
received,  the  chair  announcing  that  "Western  Virginia  Confer- 
ence is  received  into  the  association  of  Northern  and  Western 
Conferences."  The  first  report  was  that  from  the  Committee  of 
"  Legal  Transfer  "  of  the  Western  Book  Concern  from  a  Conven- 
tion of  conferences  to  ''the  control  of  a  General  Conference."  It 
was  unanimously  adopted.  The  report  of  the  Board  of  Trust  is 
of  great  length.  It  shows  a  deficit  for  the  two  years  for  the 
paper  and  publishing  house  of  ^1085.03,  but  makes  a  total  capital 
of  ^14,088.97,  including  as  an  asset  ^4725  due  on  the  Church 
paper.  The  Civil  War  had  seriously  crippled  the  finances.  The 
circulation  of  the  paper  was  reported  as  3112.  The  Committee 
on  Education  and  Literature  reported  that  Adrian  College  was 
offered  on  a  mutual  plan  between  the  Wesleyan  Methodists,  the 
citizens  of  Adrian,  and  Methodist  Protestant  bodies.  Dr.  John 
Kost  having  been  elected  a  professor  in  the  college,  and  it  was 
represented  that  the  buildings  already  erected  had  cost  §45,000, 
and  a  capital  stock  of  over  §60,000  secured  by  trustees;  said 
partnership  was  tendered  on  condition  that  a  further  sum  of 
§60,000  be  raised  by  the  Methodist  Protestants,  etc.  It  was 
resolved  to  accept,  and  commissioners  were  appointed  to  settle 
the  details. 

Dr.  John  Scott  offered  a  resolution,  which  was  passed,  restoring 
to  the  "General  Conference  the  Paper  and  Book  Concern."  The 
committee  on  Sunday-schools  authorized  tlie  Book  Concern  to 
issue  semi-monthly  the  Sunday-School  Protestant.  There  was  a 
majority  and  minority  report  on  the  "Powers  of  the  Convention," 
the  former  by  Dorsey,  Jr.,  and  others,  alleging  that  it  had  "full 
powers  over  the  Constitution  and  Discipline,"  and  the  latter  from 
J.  Robison  alone,  alleging  that  it  had  not.  The  Committee  on 
the  "State  of  the  Countr}^,"  Dorsey,  Jr.,  chairman,  reported  a 
series  of  whereases  and  resolutions,  the  main  one  reading:  — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  heartily  indorse  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation of  President  Lincoln ;  because  it  strikes  at  that  baleful  cause 
of  all  our  civil  and  ecclesiastical  difficulties,  American  slavery, 
the  sum  of  all  villanies,  the  darling  idol  of  villains,  the  central 
power  of  villanous  secession  ism,  but  now,  by  the  wisdom  of  the 


SALIENT  CONVENTION  BUSINESS 


458 


President,  about  to  be  made  tlie  agent  of  retributive  justice  in 
punishing  that  culmination  of  villanous  enterprises,  the  attempt 
to  overthrow  the  most  glorious  civil  government  that  God's  provi- 
dence ever  established  upon  earth." 

The  paper  also  deprecated  "  dissensions  and  divisions  "  among 
themselves,  and  pronounces  it  a  "  strong  evidence  of  sympathy 
with  our  enemies"  by  those  who  do  so  on  "any  pretext  what- 
ever," A  committee  of  Dorsey,  Jr.,  John  Scott,  and  John 
Whetstone  was  named  to  address  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  whole  was  passed  by  a  rising  unanimous  vote.  The 
fourth  resolve  against  dissenters  among  them  is  clear  only  in  the 
light  of  the  fact  that  Muskingum  had  declined  to  be  represented 
in  this  Convention,  and  there  were  mutterings  of  dissatisfaction 
at  the  steps  taken,  which  were  construed  as  much  more  than  a 
"  suspension  of  ofiB.cial  relations  "  with  the  Conferences  East  and 
South. 

The  Committee  on  Statistics  reported  464  itinerants,  314  unsta- 
tioned  ministers  and  preachers,  40,479  members,  328  houses  of 
worship,  87  parsonages,  with  a  value  of  $575,507.  As  the  mem- 
bership column  included  West  Virginia,  of  1787,  it  shows  a  decline 
in  numbers  and  also  in  all  other  features  in  the  past  two  years. 
The  pending  war  depressed  all  religious  denominations.  It  was 
resolved  to  make  changes  in  the  Constitution  and  submit  them 
for  approval  to  two-thirds  of  the  Annual  Conferences  adhering  to 
the  "association."  After  a  careful  canvass  of  the  instructions 
of  the  Annual  Conferences  sent  to  the  Convention,  the  following 
changes  were  made.  The  Eestrictive  Eule  was  amended,  so  that 
exception  was  made  in  "  cases  of  necessity,  of  which  the  Annual 
Conferences  shall  be  the  judge."  It  was  left  with  the  Conferences 
to  decide  whether  the  President  should  travel  or  not.  The  word 
"male"  was  stricken  from  Article  XII.,  section  1,^  and  some 
minor  points  amended.  It  was  resolved  that  "there  shall  be  a 
General  Conference  of  this  association  on  the  second  Wednesday 
of  November,  1866,"  etc.  The  ratio  of  representation  was  fixed 
for  one  of  each  class  in  every  thousand  members  and  a  fraction 
over  six  hundred.  The  cash  system  was  determined  for  the 
Church  paper,  and  on  election  for  Editor,  Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  Jr., 

1  Dr.  Scott,  in  his  "  Fifty  Years,"  distinctly  repudiates  for  himself  and  a 
majority  of  the  Convention  any  intention  that  this  action  should  he  construed  as 
making  women  eligible  to  the  General  or  Annual  Conferences,  though  he  voted 
for  it  at  the  time,  and  at  the  ensuing  Pittsburgh  Conference  when  it  came  up  for 
ratification. 


454 


HIS  TOBY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


was  elected,  and  for  Agent,  A.  H.  Bassett.  The  Committee  on 
Missions  reported  that  $SG6.o7  had  been  collected  and  ^155.17 
expended  for  relief  of  Western  brethren.  J.  M.  Young  was  made 
missionary  to  Kansas ;  the  ensuing  General  Conference  to  elect 
a  Board  of  Missions,  three  ministers  and  three  laymen,  and  that 
they  reside  at  or  near  Springfield,  0.  Also  a  Corresponding 
Secretary,  etc.  George  Brown,  J.  J.  White,  William  Gunckel, 
C.  Cooley,  were  made  fraternal  messengers  to  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Wesleyan  Methodists  to  meet  at  Adrian,  Mich., 
in  1864.  Dr.  George  Brown  offered  a  Declaration  restoring  the 
General  Conference.  It  recites  the  23d  Article  of  Religion  on 
allegiance  to  the  government,  etc.,  and  that  certain  States,  nam- 
ing them,  are  now  ''in  armed  rebellion,"  and  whereas  "the  posi- 
tion assumed  by  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  the  rebel 
States  aforenamed  in  repudiating  the  23d  Article  of  Religion 
and  taking  part  in  the  rebellion,  must  be  considered  in  the  light 
of  a  revolt  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  the  free 
States,"  therefore  the  Methodist  Protestant  churches  in  the  West 
and  North  were  "absolved  from  all  obligations  to  ask  the  official 
concurrence  of  the  Conferences,  now  involved  in  the  double  sin 
of  slavery  and  rebellion,"  etc.,  therefore  be  it,  "Resolved,  on  this 
twelfth  day  of  November,  1862,  in  Cincinnati,  0.,  that  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  by  action 
of  the  aforesaid  Convention,  be  and  the  same  is  hereby  restored 
to  its  full  original  authority  under  the  Constitution  of  said 
Methodist  Protestant  Church."  On  motion  of  Dr.  Scott  it  was 
unanimously  passed  by  a  rising  vote.  The  Convention  then 
adjourned  sine  die. 

Dr.  John  Scott,  in  his  last  book,  "Fifty  Years,"  says  of  this 
action,  "The  intention  of  this  paper  was  to  show  that  in  the 
judgment  of  the  Convention  the  conferences  of  the  free  States 
constituted  the  true  original  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  It 
may  be  observed  that  since  1858  no  General  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  had  convened,  and  consequently 
that  no  official  deliverance  had  ever  been  made  by  the  Church  as 
such.  Even  the  Annual  Conferences  in  the  Southern  states,  with 
perhaps  the  exception  of  North  Carolina  on  one  occasion,  had 
followed  the  example  of  Maryland  in  abstaining  from  resolutions 
on  the  whole  subject.  Whatever  the  members  of  the  Church  did 
as  chaplains  or  officers  or  privates  in  the  Confederate  army,  they 
did  in  their  capacity  as  citizens  and  not  as  Methodist  Protestants. 
Therefore  the  gravamen  of  the  Declaration  was  disavowed  in 


A  DIFFERENCE  OF  OPINION 


455 


the  East  and  South  as  utterly  invalid;  to  wit,  "Including  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  those  States,  did  renounce  their 
allegiance  to  the  United  States,  and  are  now  in  armed  rebellion 
against  the  government  of  our  country,  and  whereas  the  position 
assumed  by  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  in  the  rebel  States 
aforenamed,  in  repudiating  the  23d  Article  of  our  religion  and 
taking  part  in  the  rebellion,  etc." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


Sketch  of  Joel  Dalbey  and  Robert  Dobbins  and  others  deceased  —  General  Con- 
ference of  1862  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  a  default,  except  informal  organization, 
by  the  war — The  Church  papers;  liow  conducted  at  this  time  —  Termination 
of  the  war ;  aggression  upon  the  Church  South  by  Bishop  Ames,  backed  by  the 
civil  government;  moral  —  Dr.  Brown  as  fraternal  delegate  to  the  M.  E.  Gen- 
eral Conference  makes  a  proposal  of  "  Union  "  ;  logical  incompatibility  of  it  — 
General  Conference  of  May,  1865;  list  of  members;  its  action  on  Articles  V. 
and  XXIII. ;  never  repealed  by  it,  hence  no  reaffirmation  called  for ;  J.  T. 
Murray  elected  editor  of  the  olricial  paper  —  The  Wesleyans  and  Methodist 
Protestants  North  and  West;  renewal  of  courtship  — Wesley  Starr  deceased; 
sketch  of  him  and  reflections  —  "  Union"  in  the  air  among  Methodists;  each 
seeking  its  own  advantage ;  nothing  but  absorption  meant  by  any  of  them  — 
Regular  General  Conference  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  May,  1866;  roster  of  mem- 
bers ;  action  as  to  the  Western  Conferences ;  proposal  from  the  Church  South 
for  "  Union,"  as  they  had  adopted  lay-delegation ;  ground  of  it ;  commissioners 
appointed ;  convention  on  Book  Concern ;  initiation  of  Western  Maryland 
College  —  Centennial  year. 

PiCKiXG  up  the  thread  of  incidental  transactions  where  it  was 
dropped  in  1858,  with  the  organization  of  the  Minnesota  Confer- 
ence, Bassett's  "  History  furnishes  a  few  items  associated  v/ith 
this  period.  "In  1858  the  West  Michigan  Conference  was  set 
off  from  the  Michigan,  and  the  Korth  Iowa  from  the  Iowa.  Same 
year  was  commenced  a  religious  paper,  called  the  Olive  Leaf,  at 
Lowell,  Mass.,  under  the  direction  of  the  Boston  Conference.  It 
was  conducted  by  Kev.  J.  M.  Mayall,  and  continued  for  four  or 
more  years."  The  Western  paper  furnished  a  sketch  of  Rev. 
Joseph  Snelling,  an  early  Reformer,  died  December  1,  1858;  and 
of  Rev.  Joel  Dalbey,  M.D.,  an  original  Reformer  and  unstationed 
minister  of  the  Indiana  Conference  at  the  time,  March  3,  1859. 
He  was  born  in  Ohio  on  the  1st  of  June,  1810,  and  was  the  eldest 
of  four  sons  of  Rev.  Joel  Dalbey,  Sr.,  all  of  whom  became  preach- 
ers of  the  gospel.  With  his  father,  he  was  associated  with  the 
Reform  movement  from  the  beginning.  He  assisted  in  organizing 
the  first  Ohio  Conference.  He  also  served  in  the  Pittsburgh  and 
the  Muskingum  Conferences.  He  was  graduated  in  medicine 
from  the  Cincinnati  College.  He  was  also  in  the  Illinois  Confer- 
ence and  the  North  Iowa,  in  all  of  which  he  served  as  President. 

456 


NECROLOGY  OF  TEE  FATHEBS 


467 


He  died  on  his  farm  in  Missouri  on  the  22d  of  November,  1859, 
in  the  sixtieth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  zealous,  emotional,  and 
useful  as  a  preacher,  and  spared  not  himself  as  a  pioneer  in 
Christian  work  and  Methodist  Reform.  At  the  close  of  the  Sab- 
bath on  which  he  died,  his  breathing  became  short  and  labored, 
and  his  wife  inquired  if  he  suffered  much.  He  answered, 
"Yes,  but  I  have  great  peace  of  mind.'^  Just  before  the  end  he 
called  his  wife  to  "  come  and  see  the  joy !  "  He  said :  "  This  is  a 
beautiful  day,  my  dear;  there  are  many  stars  in  my  crown  of 
rejoicing.  My  sheaves  are  gathered  around  me.  The  joy!  the 
joy!"  He  folded  his  hands  upon  his  breast  and  was  gone. 
Colhouer,  in  his  "Founders,"  pp.  451-453,  says,  "He  was  the 
Robert  McCheyne  in  fervor,  and  the  sweet  singer  of  our  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church."  Rev.  Robert  Dobbins  was  born  in 
Pennsylvania,  April  20,  1768.  Early  converted,  and  a  local 
preacher  of  the  old  Church  for  many  years,  on  the  inauguration 
of  the  Reform  movement  he  identified  himself  with  it;  entered 
the  itinerancy  in  1830,  in  the  sixty-second  year  of  his  age,  and 
continued  therein  until  past  fourscore.  In  1836-37  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  Conference,  and  travelled  the  district  when  it 
included  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  a  part  of  Kentucky.  He  had  a  voice 
of  great  compass,  and  was  very  effective  in  outdoor  speaking. 
He  died  January  13,  1860,  in  the  ninety-second  year  of  his 
age,  and  was  buried  near  Washington  Court-house,  0. ;  and  the 
spot  is  marked  with  a  neat  monument.  The  funeral  sermon  was 
preached  by  Rev.  W.  B.  Evans,  the  oldest  member  of  the  Confer- 
ence. A  "  Life  of  'Father '  Dobbins  "  was  issued  by  Rev.  Charles 
Caddy,  in  1868.  Rev.  Levi  Bunson,  early  Reformer  of  Connect- 
icut, April  25,  1860;  John  Wood,  layman  of  Cincinnati  and 
early  Reformer,  May  23,  1860;  Joseph  Rockhold,  Reformer  of 
1827,  August  29,  1860;  Rev.  William  Ross,  Sr.,  Reformer  of 
Illinois  Conference,  October  17,  1860. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church, 
which  was  ordered  for  May,  1862,  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  could  not 
assemble  on  account  of  the  war,  the  representatives  from  Maryland 
alone  being  present.  It  was  duly  organized,  however,  with  J oseph 
Libby,  President  pro  tern.,  and  D.  E.  Reese,  Secretary.  The  full 
Maryland  delegation  answered,  and  the  roster  of  names  will  be 
given,  for  the  General  Conference  of  1865,  at  the  same  place,  the 
same  representatives  holding  over.  Dr.  Francis  Waters  was 
elected  President,  and  Daniel  E.  Reese,  Secretary.  A  resolution 
was  offered,  and  carried,  that  when  the  Conference  adjourns  it  is 


458 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


to  meet  again  at  the  call  of  the  President.  No  other  business  was 
proposed,  at  the  suggestion  of  West  Virginia  and  others. 

Dennis  B.  Dorsey,  Jr.,  as  editor  of  the  Western  Methodist  Protes- 
tantj  nibbed  a  sharp  and,  at  times,  a  caustic  pen,  though  displaying 
great  intellectual  ability.  Within  a  year  a  personal  controversy 
was  introduced,  and  the  acrimonious  debate  gave  much  dissatis- 
faction. The  Sunday- School  Protestant  was  issued  from  Spring- 
field, 0.,  February,  1863,  a  semi-monthly,  price  thirty  cents  a 
year.  In  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  the  lay-delegation 
agitation  continued  on  the  non-committal  attitude  of  the  General 
Conference  of  1862,  and  a  large  Convention  of  laymen  assembled 
at  St.  Paul's  church.  New  York  City.  A  number  of  notable  min- 
isters and  laymen  were  present,  and  Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  Jr.,  made 
a  remarkable  speech,  misrepresenting  Keformers.  The  Nevj  York 
Methodist,  under  Dr.  Crooks,  was  doing  yeoman  service  for  this 
cause.  April  2,  1864,  the  official  paper,  Baltimore,  was  restored 
to  its  former  size.  Meantime  it  had  had  for  editors,  serving 
without  compensation,  stationed  ministers  of  the  city,  as  follows : 
1862,  L.  W.  Bates  and  H.  C.  Cushing;  1863,  Francis  Waters  and 
L.  W.  Bates;  1861,  Francis  Waters  and  J.  T.  Murray.  Thomas 
W.  Ewing  was  continued  as  Agent  by  the  Directory,  and  dili- 
gently managed  its  affairs,  taking  such  compensation  as  the 
meagre  income  of  the  paper  would  allow.  Under  flag  of  truce  a 
supply  of  Bibles  and  hymn  books  was  sent  to  Eev.  Dr.  S.  B. 
Southerland  at  Charleston,  S.  C,  August,  1864.  In  November, 
1864,  the  editor  of  the  Western  paper  retired  under  pressure,  but 
still  claimed  the  position.  Dr.  George  Brown  was  elected  editor 
pro  tern,  by  the  Book  Committee,  w^ith  J.  S.  Thrap,  Agent,  reliev- 
ing A.  H.  Bassett.  This  was  in  November,  1864.  A  month 
later,  Kev.  Dr.  John  Scott  was  elected  editor  by  the  Book  Com- 
mittee under  a  positive  prohibition  of  personal  controversy  in 
its  columns.  He  soon  took  charge,  and,  with  the  cooperation  of 
the  Agent,  J.  S.  Thrap,  brought  order  out  of  much  confusion; 
in  the  next  few  years  its  finances  were  much  improved.  The 
Maryland  Annual  Conference  College  was  incorporated,  em- 
powered to  bestow  degrees,  by  the  Legislature  of  ^Maryland, 
through  Bev.  H.  P.  Jordan,  in  1864.  Its  Faculty  of  Instruction 
still  acts  under  this  charter  in  local  jurisdiction.  The  New  York 
Methodist  Episcopal  Book  Concern  thought  it  good  policy  to 
advertise  in  the  Methodist  Protestant,  Baltimore,  the  local  paper, 
the  Baltimore  Christian  Advocate,  Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  Jr.,  editor, 
having  suspended  shortly  after  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War. 


INTERESTING  CURRENT  EVENTS 


459 


Obituary  of  Eev.  K.  T.  Boyd,  early  Reformer  of  Maryland  and 
one  of  the  Expelled  of  1827,  April  1,  1865. 

The  Civil  War  having  terminated  in  the  spring  of  1865,  by 
the  surrender  of  General  Lee  to  General  Grant,  followed  by  the 
assassination  of  President  Lincoln,  and  the  inauguration  of  John- 
son as  President,  the  whole  country,  after  recovering  from  its 
mourning  and  surprise,  entered  once  more  upon  the  pursuits  of 
peace ;  the  North,  in  full  possession  of  the  government,  making 
the  most  of  the  advance  gained,  and  the  South,  prostrate  and  con- 
quered, yielding  to  the  inevitable.  The  churches  entered  upon 
the  work  of  rehabilitation.  The  old  animosities  between  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  North  and  South,  were  exaggerated 
during  and  at  the  close  of  the  war;  and,  as  the  Federal  armies 
advanced  and  took  permanent  possession  in  the  South,  the  offi- 
cials of  the  former,  under  a  conviction  that  the  latter  could  have 
no  rights  they  were  bound  to  respect,  secured  an  order  from  Sec- 
retary Stanton,  as  early  as  November  30,  1863,  which  was  en- 
forced by  the  military  authorities,  as  opportunity  occurred,  under 
the  prompting  of  Bishop  Ames ;  and,  wherever  it  could  be  done, 
the  churches  were  seized  and  pastors  appointed  under  his  juris- 
diction. In  this  vandalism  it  stood  alone  among  the  Christian 
denominations, — it  was  one  of  its  covert  quasi-claims  to  a 
national  character,  enforced  for  a  period,  with  both  the  military 
and  civil  power  of  the  government. 

Eeform  churches  and  people  were  "scattered  and  peeled,"  and 
the  task  of  gathering  up  the  shattered  fragments  was  onerous 
indeed,  if  not  hopeless.  Happily,  the  brethren  of  the  North  and 
West  did  not  entertain  the  infamous  political  maxim,  "To  the 
victors  belong  the  spoils,"  and  did  not  think  of,  much  less 
attempt,  the  dragooning  method  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  with  their  unfortunate  brethren  South.  They,  too,  had 
suffered,  and  were  intent  upon  recuperation,  which  had  in  it  no 
element  of  aggression  upon  the  East  and  South.  Indeed,  they 
repelled,  as  insulting  to  their  Christian  honor,  the  imputation, 
as  will  be  presently  seen.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
showed  a  loss  of  membership  from  1860  to  1864  of  over  sixty- 
eight  thousand,  mostly  along  the  border  States.  The  Church 
South  from  1860  to  1866  had  a  loss,  not  including  colored,  exceed- 
ing one  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand.  The  Eeform  Church, 
comparatively,  seems  to  have  been  disorganized,  and,  in  some 
of  the  States,  was  not  represented  in  the  regular  ninth  General 
Conference  of  1866,  and  it  made  no  attempt  to  tabulate  statistics. 


460  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


In  the  North  and  West  coquetting  was  going  on  between  the 
brethren  and  the  Wesleyans  in  order  to  "  strengthen  the  things 
that  remain";  and  in  the  East  and  South,  the  same  process  was 
carried  on  with  the  Church  South  with  the  same  intent.  The 
Baltimore  official  paper  was  sent  South  to  the  old  subscribers  as 
rapidly  as  mail  facilities  could  be  restored  under  the  general  gov- 
ernment, and  correspondence  was  resumed. 

Obituary,  in  Western  paper,  of  Eev.  James  L.  Smith,  Re- 
former, unstationed  minister  of  Ohio  Conference,  July  8,  1863. 
Also  Rev.  Adam  Shaner,  Reformer  and  unstationed  minister  of 
Ohio  Conference,  March  16,  1864.  Rev.  W.  W.  Strickland, 
Reformer,  member  of  New  York  and  Vermont  Conference,  June 
16,  1864.  The  North  Missouri  Conference  was  organized.  See 
first  page  of  Western  paper,  November,  1864.^  William  Wyman, 
early  Reformer  and  representative  to  General  Conferences  from 
Boston  Conference,  November  16,  1864.  His  wife,  Ruth,  had 
made  a  large  donation  to  the  Church.  In  West  Virginia  and  in 
Pennsylvania  the  relation  of  these  Conferences  was  the  subject  of 
much  discussion  and  change  during  and  after  the  Civil  War;  but 
the  local  coloring  is  not  sufficiently  important  for  detailed 
account  in  these  pages.  Dr.  George  Brown,  as  a  fraternal  dele- 
gate to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  March,  1860,  in  a  colloquy  with  the  Presiding  Bishop 
Janes,  himself  of  liberal  views,  though  not  authorized  by  his  Con- 
ference, and  he  so  stated,  ventured  to  indicate  terms  of  union  be- 
tween the  two  Churches,  a  single  sentence  giving  the  gist  of  it, 
"  We  will  take  your  episcopacy  if  you  will  take  our  lay-delega- 
tion," under  the  reserved  belief  that  the  latter  would  modify  the 
former.  He  had  reason  in  after  years  to  change  his  mind  as  to 
the  feasibility  of  any  such  barter,  and  was  probably  moved  to  it 
by  a  sense  of  denominational  loss  incident  to  the  division  of  his 
Church.  The  basic  principles  of  the  episcopate  and  the  presby- 
teriate  are  utterly  irreconcilable,  and  nothing  but  a  hodgepodge 

1  The  Minutes  read :  "  Convention  of  the  old  Platte  District  on  the  29th  day 
of  September,  18G4,  at  Bradley  schoolhouse  in  Mercer  County,  Mo.  J.  Leach 
was  called  to  the  chair,  and  J.  S.  Brownlee,  Secretary.  On  motion  of  brother 
Williams  the  convention  resolved  itself  into  the  Annual  Conference  of  the  North 
Missouri  District,  embracing  all  the  state  of  Missouri  lying  north  of  the  Missouri 
River.  Rev.  G.  Williams  was  elected  President.  Mount  Moriah,  Wm.  Yates; 
Lindley,  L.  D.  Cooper  ;  Maryville,  .James  Smith ;  Breckenridge,  H.  B.  Tell  ; 
Kerksville,  J.  Leach ;  Union,  M.  Crawford;  Toakio,  W.  Emerson;  Des  Moines, 
J.  S.  Brownlee;  Muscle  Mills,  J.  H.  Linder.  Jacob  Ilolloway  in  U.  S.  service. 
James  McEwen,  Home  Missionary."  No  list  of  laymen.  Gabriel  Williams  was  a 
heroic  worker  in  these  days  for  Christ  and  Reform. 


EPISCOPATE  AND  PEESBYTEEIATE  IRRECONCILABLE  461 


could  come  from  an  intermixture.  This  essential  fact  is  often 
lost  sight  of  by  well-meaning  brethren,  and  it  may  be  taken  as  a 
postulate  that  any  and  all  overtures  of  union,  so  called,  should 
always  come  from  the  stronger  to  the  weaker  organization,  and 
are  never  made  out  of  this  order  without  sensible  depreciation  of 
the  latter;  and  when  made  in  this  order  all  history  proves  that 
there  is  such  a  measure  of  ecclesiastical  finesse  in  the  proposition 
as  reduces  it,  in  its  last  analysis,  to  one  of  simple  absorption  of 
the  weaker  by  the  stronger, — union  by  mutual  concession  and 
recognition  is  not  intended.  This  History  will  give  frequent 
illustrations  of  the  fact  that  in  nothing  has  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church  suffered  such  loss,  not  even  the  regrettable  separa- 
tion of  1858,  as  from  such  guileful  suggestions  from  within  or 
without,  to  or  from,  other  American  Methodisms.  This  argument 
will  be  further  elaborated  in  later  connections.  In  November, 
1860,  Dr.  Brown  was  elected  editor  of  the  Western  Methodist 
Protestant  for  the  ensuing  two  years.  He  entered  upon  the  duty, 
though  past  seventy  years  of  age,  and  gave  proof  that  his  moral 
and  intellectual  force  had  not  abated.  He  removed  with  this 
intent  to  Springfield,  and  found  here  a  resting-place  for  the  con- 
clusion of  his  useful  career ;  forty  years  an  itinerant,  then  college 
president,  then  editor,  and,  finally,  retired  veteran  of  hard- 
fought  battles  for  Christ  and  Keform. 

At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  suggestions  were  made  for  the 
reconvocation  of  the  adjourned  General  Conference,  and,  accord- 
ingly, pursuant  to  agreement,  a  call  was  issued  by  the  President, 
Dr.  Francis  Waters,  to  meet  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  May  9,  1865, 
one  year  in  advance  of  the  regular  period ;  and,  therefore,  though 
an  "  adjourned "  Conference,  it  was  regarded  as  only  tentative, 
inasmuch  as  the  Conferences  out  of  Maryland  could  have  no 
opportunity  for  electing  representatives,  or,  if  elected,  in  1862, 
by  any  of  them, — of  which  there  is  no  information, — the  ab- 
sence of  facilities  of  travel  would  make  it  impracticable  for  them 
to  attend,  not  to  name  their  utter  poverty.  At  the  hour  and  day 
appointed  Dr.  Waters,  as  President,  called  the  representatives  to 
order,  and  D.  E.  Eeese  resumed  his  position  as  Secretary.  The 
following  ministers  and  laymen  were  elected  to  the  Conference  of 


1862. 


Maryland 


Ministers 

Francis  Waters 
Thomas  Sims 


Laymen 

George  Vickers 
J.  B,  Mathews 


462 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Maryland  (continued) 


Ministers 
Daniel  E.  Reese 
J.  W.  Everest 
Washington  Roby  ^ 


Joseph  Libby 
J.  B.  Thomas  1 


Luther  Martin  i 
John  Smith  1 
J.  W.  Richardson  1 
David  Price  i 


Laymen 


J.  K.  Nichols 
L.  W.  Bates 
J.  J.  Murray 


Illinois 


Orestes  Ames 


Wabash 


David  Clark 


B.  F.  Perry 


Ames,  Clark  and  Perry's  credentials  were  so  informal,  how- 
ever, that  they  were  received  as  honorary  members  only.  Adon- 
ijah  Parrish  was  received  as  a  messenger  from  the  Des  Moines 
Mission,  Missouri.  Cornelius  Springer  was  also  accorded  an 
honorary  membership  from  Muskingum. 

The  brief  minutes  were  published  in  the  official  paper  of  even 
date.  A  committee  of  three  was  appointed.  Dr.  Waters,  Chair- 
man, to  revise  the  Ritual  and  report  to  the  next  General  Confer- 
ence. The  Conference,  as  a  body,  under  the  lead  of  its  venerable 
President,  visited  the  White  House  and  made  their  respects  to 
President  Andrew  Johnson,  who  expressed  appreciation  of  the 
prayers  and  support  of  good  men.  On  resumption  of  business 
Dr.  Thomas  Sims,  the  unstationed  minister  of  the  Maryland 
delegation,  offered  resolutions  on  "  the  relation  of  this  Church  to 
the  government."  He  was,  during  the  war,  an  intense  "Union" 
man,  and  he  embodied  quite  radical  and  semi-political  senti- 
ments in  his  paper.  George  Vickers,  also  a  pronounced  "  Union  " 
man  during  the  war  and  commissioned  as  a  general  of  volunteers, 
offered  a  substitute,  which  was  more  favorably  received  as  "a 
better  expression  for  a  Church  to  give  upon  the  subject."  The 
substitute  was  adopted  by  a  large  majority.  It  recites,  with 
approval,  the  23d  Article  of  Religion  on  allegiance,  and  also  the 
5tli  Article,  declaring  the  Holy  Scriptures  contain  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation,  and  then  the  following  deliverance,  "  The 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  has  never  repealed  these  articles  of 
religion,  and  has  never  entertained  the  purpose  of  doing  so,  or 
of  denying  any  duty  enjoined  upon  it  by  the  Scriptures,  we  deem 


1  Absent.    Roby  and  Thomas  had  de'^  eased  in  the  interim. 


CONVENTION  OF  NON-EPISCOPAL  METHODISTS  463 

it  unnecessary  to  make  any  further  declaration  of  our  principles  j 
but,  in  view  of  the  condition  of  the  country  at  this  time,  and  our 
duty  at  all  times,  exhort  ministers  and  members  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  not  only  to  submit  to  the  powers  that  be,  but 
most  earnestly  pray  for  those  in  authority,  that  they  may  be 
ministers  of  good,  and  that  every  and  all  our  fellow-citizens  may 
be  able  to  live  quiet  and  peaceable  lives  in  all  godliness  and 
honesty."  Eev.  J.  T.  Murray,  who  had  acted  with  Dr.  Waters 
as  an  editorial  committee  the  previous  year  of  1864,  was  elected 
editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  by  a  formal  vote.  Mont- 
gomery, Ala.,  and  Lynchburg,  Va.,  were  suggested  as  places  for 
holding  the  next  General  Conference,  as  more  central  and  less 
expensive  to  reach  by  a  majority  of  delegates;  but,  on  balloting, 
Georgetown,  D.  C,  was  again  selected  as  the  place.  The  Con- 
ference adjourned,  with  the  benediction  by  the  President. 

The  agitation  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  on  lay-dele- 
gation at  the  close  of  the  war  was  much  revived,  and  the  New 
England  Conference  voted,  as  a  unit,  in  favor  of  it  in  the  spring  of 
1865.  As  an  exclusively  clerical  body  it  had  much  significance. 
The  initiative  movement  between  the  Wesleyans  and  the  Confer- 
ences West  and  North,  looking  to  "union,"  gradually  ripened, 
the  former  taking  the  lead,  as  apparently  most  anxious  to  con- 
summate it.  A  consultation  was  held  at  Springfield,  in  1864, 
with  several  of  their  number,  and  George  Brown,  A.  H.  Bassett, 
and  others.  In  February,  1865,  Rev.  Cyrus  Pr indie,  then  Book 
Agent  of  the  Wesleyans  and  a  leading  man,  came  to  Springfield 
and  preached  on  Sabbath  in  the  church,  decidedly  advocating 
union.  Partly  as  the  result  of  this  interview,  a  circular  was 
prepared  by  Dr.  Brown,  with  Prindle's  concurrence,  calling  a 
Convention  of  Non-Episcopal  Methodists,  of  the  various  branches, 
to  meet  at  Cleveland,  0.,  June  21,  1865.  Meanwhile  Eev.  Dr. 
Hiram  Mattison  had  withdrawn  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  and  organized  some  independent  churches.  These,  in 
September,  1864,  had  appointed  a  committee,  of  which  he  was 
principal,  to  confer  with  other  Methodists  for  a  like  union.  They 
finally  coalesced  with  the  Dr.  Brown  committee,  and  a  joint 
call  was  made  for  a  Convention,  as  stated.  It  was  published  in 
the  Western  Methodist  Protestant  and  the  Wesley  an  American.  It 
assembled,  accordingly,  Dr.  John  Scott,  of  the  "Methodist" 
Church,  President,  and  John  McEldowney,  of  the  Wesleyans, 
Secretary.  Fifty-six  delegates  from  the  Conferences  West  and 
North  were  present ;  sixty-three  of  the  Wesleyan  branch ;  three 


464  BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


from  Union  Chapel,  Cincinnati,  which  continued  to  maintain  an 
autonomy  of  its  own;  two  Free  Methodists,  and  Dr.  Mattison  of 
the  Independent  churches.  After  mature  deliberation,  in  which 
unanimity  prevailed  for  union,  Kev.  Dr.  L.  C.  Matlack  prepared 
a  paper  to  this  effect,  which  was  unanimously  adopted,  and  recom- 
mended the  call  of  a  delegated  Convention  to  be  held  in  Union 
Chapel,  Cincinnati,  ^lay  9,  1866,  said  Convention  to  be  author- 
ized to  fix  a  basis  of  union,  and  the  mode  of  its  consummation. 

The  Wabash  Conference  was  merged  into  the  Indiana,  now 
covering  the  whole  State,  in  the  autumn  of  1865.  The  Virginia 
and  the  Xorth  Carolina  Conferences  published  the  minutes  of 
their  autumn  sessions  of  1865.  Six  months  later  the  official 
paper  contained  the  minutes  of  the  Mississippi  Conference, 
June  2,  1866.  Obituary  of  Rev.  George  H.  Ewell,  early  Re- 
former of  Mar3^1and,  aged  eighty-five  years,  December  30,  1865. 
Dr.  Augustus  Webster,  pastor  of  St.  John's  Independent  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church,  Baltimore,  was  invited  by  the  Maryland 
Conference  to  resume  official  connection,  personally,  with  it,  as 
an  effort  to  heal  the  breach  of  the  old  "mission"  controversy, 
already  narrated.  He  accepted  and,  until  his  death,  maintained 
close  relations  with  it.  Wesley  Starr  departed  this  life  in  much 
peace  May  9,  1866.  He  was  born  in  1789,  in  Westmoreland 
County,  Va.  Converted  in  his  seventeenth  year,  he  united  with 
the  old  Church,  and  was  a  zealous  Christian.  Being  strongly 
American  in  his  ideas  of  government,  he  was  of  the  first  to 
embrace  the  Reform  principles  in  Baltimore,  whither  he  had 
removed,  in  1808,  and  where,  in  the  mercantile  business,  he 
acquired  wealth  and  influence.  He  was  one  of  the  twenty-two 
laymen  Expelled  in  1827  for  his  church  Reform  advocacy.  A 
man  of  iron  will  and  firm  convictions,  he  differed  from  his  more 
liberal  brethren  of  St.  John's  as  to  Methodist  usages,  and  the 
itinerancy  in  particular  of  the  "two  year"  order;  and  led  in  the 
separation  that  resulted  in  the  organization  of  the  West  Balti- 
more station,  in  1843.  His  liberality  abounded  on  all  occasions. 
Failing  to  carry  some  of  his  favorite  Methodist  ideas,  he  removed 
from  the  West  Baltimore  station,  and,  during  the  Civil  War, 
built,  at  his  own  expense  and  after  his  own  model,  the  Starr 
Chapel,  which,  at  its  completion,  he  offered  to  any  Methodist 
organization  that  would  comply  with  the  "old  usage,"  conditions 
he  made  imperative  and  binding  forever.  Among  these  was  a 
declaration  against  instrumental  music  of  every  and  any  kind; 
the  seating  of  men  and  women  apart;  the  lining  of  hymns,  and 


METHODIST  ''UNION''  COURTSHIPS  465 


the  absolute  non-use  of  the  church  for  everything  of  a  social  or 
festival  nature  having  any  price  of  admission.  It  was  finally 
accepted  by  the  Maryland  Conference,  and  has  had  a  career  of 
prosperity,  principally  among  railroad  men,  for  whom  he  spe- 
cially designed  it  by  location,  etc.,  though  it  has  been  greatly 
hampered  by  his  restrictions  in  several  particulars,  showing  the 
unwisdom  of  regulations,  either  by  individuals  or  corporations, 
of  an  irrepealable  kind  for  future  generations,  when  conditions 
have  changed.  He  expended  on  ground,  church,  and  parsonage 
some  $40,000,  and  left  an  endowment  of  realty  realizing  about 
$900  a  year.  It  was  his  idea  of  a  "child's  portion"  of  his 
worldly  possessions.  He  was  often  elected  representative  to  the 
Annual  and  General  Conferences.  Positive  to  dogmatism,  blunt 
in  expression,  yet  courteous  and  genial,  he  was  highly  respected 
in  all  relations.  His  funeral  was  largely  attended  in  the  Starr 
Chapel,  the  sermon  being  preached  by  his  old  friend  in  Reform, 
E-ev.  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  some  twenty  other  ministers  being 
present.  His  remains  repose  in  the  family  lot  of  Greenmount 
cemetery. 

"  Union  "  was  in  the  air  among  Methodists  in  this  epoch.  All 
of  them  had  suffered  losses  from  the  ravages  of  the  war,  and 
seemed  to  be  casting  about  to  recoup  themselves  out  of  each 
other.  The  brethren  of  the  Church  South  looked  lovingly  upon 
discouraged  Reform  ministers  and  people  in  the  South.  There 
were  fraternal  interchanges,  and  lay-delegation  became  more  than 
usually  popular  with  the  officialism  of  that  Church,  with  a  sequel 
presently  to  be  exposed.  The  non-Episcopal  Methodists  of  the 
North  and  West  would  come  together;  yes,  there  were  no  differ- 
ences among  them  to  keep  them  apart,  and  they  loved  each  other 
so  dearly  they  could  not  keep  from  ecclesiastical  wedlock.  The 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  finding  the  courtship  going  on,  like 
a  belated  lover,  made  amends  by  overtures  such  as  a  rich  suitor 
only  could  offer.  They  would  embrace  any  and  all  Methodists, 
however  naughty  in  the  past,  except  the  Church  South,  — these 
unrepenting  rebels  were  simply  overslaughed.  Conferences  were 
organized  throughout  the  South  out  of  disreputable  elements,  for 
the  most  part,  thus  ignoring  all  principles  of  ecclesiastical  comity 
with  their  quondam  brethren.  In  the  mountain  region  of  North 
Carolina  there  were  a  few  Reform  brethren  who  claimed  to  be 
"union"  men  during  the  war,  and,  as  soon  as  communication 
could  be  established,  fraternized  with  the  brethren  West  and 
North  as  the  "  Deep  River  Conference  " ;  and  they  were  lovingly 

VOL.  II  —  2  H 


466 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


encouraged.  How  all  these  overtures  miscarried  disastrously  to 
the  Methodist  Protestants,  in  some  sense  already  defined  for  the 
want  of  official  honesty  in  the  movers  that  insidious  element 
of  "  ecclesiastical  finesse,"  —  shall  be  duly  exhibited.  Meantime, 
also,  while  the  brethren  West  and  North  were  so  intent  upon 
union  with  something  else  as  to  forget,  seemingly,  that  their 
"  suspension  of  official  relations  "  with  their  Southern  brethren 
"until  the  evil  complained  of  should  be  removed,"  had  now  no 
longer  a  reason,  yet  a  few  were  far-seeing  enough  to  discern  that 
such  a  reunion  was,  after  all,  the  only  rational  thing  to  do  in  the 
emergency.  Accordingly,  friendly  letters  passing  between  Rev. 
Daniel  W.  Bates  of  Maryland  and  Eev.  William  Collier  of  Pitts- 
burgh and  others  "popped  the  question"  to  each  other;  and  out 
of  it  came  fraternal  messengers  and  preliminary  negotiations,  to 
be  considered  later. 

The  regular  ninth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church  convened  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  Tuesday,  May  1, 
1866.  W.  H.  Wills  of  North  Carolina  was  elected  President,  and 
J.  K.  Nichols  of  Maryland,  Secretary.  The  following  is  the 
roster  of  members,  some  of  them,  notably  in  Maryland,  having 
been  elected  as  alternates;  and  the  Conference  recognized  the 
right  of  Annual  Conference  delegations  to  make  changes  from 
time  to  time  in  the  sitting  members  of  their  own  number,  a  prac- 
tice which,  in  later  assemblies,  was  disapproved,  and  the  rule 
established  that  an  alternate  once  admitted  to  a  seat  must  retain 
it  to  the  close  of  the  Conference. 


Maryland 


Ministers 


Laymen 


Luther  J.  Cox 
J.  K.  Nichols 
John  Roberts 
J.  T.  Murray 


J.  J.  Murray 
L.  W.  Bates 


Francis  Waters 


S.  B.  Southerland 


W.  D.  Massey 
J.  B.  Mathews 
Joseph  Libbey 
Richard  Thomas 
J.  A.  Kennedy 
T.  A.  Newman 
L.  J.  Cox,  Jr. 
F.  J.  Bartlett 


North  Carolina 


T.  II.  Pegram 
J.  L.  Michaux 
R.  H.  Wills 


W.  H.  Wills 
John  Paris 


L.  W.  Batchelor 
G.  J.  Cherry 
S.  V.  Pickens 
D.  M.  Lee 
M.  T.  Whitaker 


REGULAR  NINTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  1866  467 


North 

Ministers 
J.  C.  Deans 
J.  H.  Page 
A.  W.  Lineberry 


Carolina  (^continued) 

Laymen 
J.  F.  Harris 
D.  B.  Bell 
W.  D.  Trotter 


J.  G.  Whitfield 
W.  McGee 
R.  B.  Thomson 
M.  J.  Langhorne 


Virginia 

H.  B.  Woodhouse 
C.  W.  Button 
Wm.  Harding 
J.  F.  Crocker 


F.  L.  B.  Shaver 
S.  K.  Cox 
D.  B.  Sinedley 
Luther  L.  Hill 
Isaac  Spangler 


Alabama 

B.  S.  Bibb 
P.  T.  Graves 

C.  M.  Howard 
Milton  Jenkins 
C.  E.  Crenshaw 


Illinois 

Orestes  Ames 


Des  Moines 
John  Sexsmith,  messenger 


Ames  was  not  present,  but  sent  his  certificate  of  election ;  which 
was  referred  to  the  committee  on  "Conference  Relations." 

Rev.  J.  T.  Murray,  editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  was 
admitted  to  honorary  membership  in  the  body.  Of  fifteen  Con- 
ferences recognized  by  the  General  Conference  of  1854,  in  the 
slaveholding  states,  only  four  were  represented  in  the  ninth. 
Some  had  not  yet  been  able  to  reorganize,  and  in  others  poverty 
and  lack  of  railroad  communication  debarred  attendance.  It  was 
determined  that  the  Conference  was  not  invested  with  conven- 
tional powers.  The  regular  Standing  Committees  were  appointed 
by  the  President.  Montgomery,  Ala.,  was  selected  unanimously 
as  the  place  for  the  ensuing  General  Conference.  The  rule  on 
missions  was  altered  so  as  to  allow  the  change  of  a  station  or  cir- 
cuit into  a  "mission,"  if  it  need  missionary  money  to  assist  it. 
Sundry  other  minor  changes  were  made  (see  amended  Discipline). 
The  Conference,  under  the  lead  of  its  President,  waited  upon  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  Under  head  of  "  Advice  to  Min- 
isters," Discipline,  p.  59,  it  was  ordered  inserted,  "  that  the  bear- 
ing of  arms  in  military  service  by  ministers  of  the  Methodist 


468  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Protestant  Church  is  inconsistent  with  their  professional  calling, 
and  the  nature  and  intent  of  their  ordination  vows."  On  Con- 
ference relations,  J.  J.  Murray  presented  a  paper  rehearsing  the 
action  of  the  Conferences  West  and  Xorth  in  the  several  Conven- 
tions held  by  them  since  1858,  the  gist  of  the  paper  being,  "  It  is 
evident  that  the  Conferences  which  have  adopted  said  Constitution 
and  Discipline,  having  voluntarily  separated  themselves  from  this 
Conference,  have  no  right  to  representation  therein."  It  was 
passed,  with  the  addition  of  the  following  resolution:  "That 
while  the  General  Conference  cannot  approve  the  course  pursued 
by  certain  Conferences  in  the  Xorth  and  West,  in  separating  them- 
selves from  us,  and  while  we  disavow  all  responsibility  for  any- 
thing done  by  said  Conferences,  individually  or  in  Convention, 
we  also  disclaim  any  unkind  feeling  for  those  who  have  gone 
from  us,  and  will  most  cordially  receive  any  Conference  that 
shall  hereafter  evince  a  desire  of  reunion  by  conformity  to  the 
Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church." 
Separate  efforts  by  Dr.  Francis  Waters  and  by  L.  W.  Batchelor  to 
send  fraternal  messengers  to  the  Convention  of  non-Episcopal 
Methodists,  announced  for  May,  1866,  in  Cincinnati,  failed  by 
being  laid  on  the  table. 

A  document  was  received  on  the  eighth  day  of  the  session  from 
Bishop  M'Tyeire  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  Church  South, 
now  in  session  at  ZSTew  Orleans,  conveying  the  information  that 
it  had  adopted  a  scheme  on  "  Lay-Kepresentation  by  a  two-thirds 
vote,"  and  as  "several  prominent  brethren  of  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church  had  suggested,"  in  view  of  such  action,  that  '"'a 
commission  be  appointed  to  confer  with  a  similar  one  from  your 
Conference  on  the  subject  of  union  between  the  two  Churches 
and  with  powers  to  conclude  the  terms  of  union,  if  it  can  be 
agreed  upon."  The  Commission  named  was:  Bishops  Pierce 
and  M'Tyeire,  Dr.  L.  M.  Lee,  Dr.  Deems,  Revs.  Messrs.  Evans, 
Head,  and  Register.  It  seems  that  the  Alabama  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi Conferences  of  the  Church,  at  their  previous  sessions, 
had  passed  such  resolutions  of  invitation;  thus  taking  an  initia- 
tive which,  in  its  consummation,  finally  disregarded  the  theory  of 
Mutual  Rights  and  General  Conference  authority.  The  Bishop's 
letter  is  coaxing  and  fraternal.  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  F.  Deems  came 
hurriedly  to  Georgetown  so  as  to  anticipate  the  adjournment  of 
the  Conference  as  one  of  the  Commissioners  and  a  fraternal  dele- 
gate, and  was  most  cordially  received.  His  address  was  animated 
and  stirring,  and  the  gist  of  it  in  ore  sentence,  "  Brethren,  you 


"  UNION''  PROPOSITION  FROM  CUURCH,  SOUTH  469 


have  converted  us !  "  After  analysis  revealed  that  the  Lay-Eepre- 
sentation  introduced  was  a  Lay-Delegation  of  an  equal  number  of 
laymen  in  the  General  Conference  and  four  for  each  elder's  dis- 
trict in  the  Annual  Conferences,  the  mode  of  their  election  still 
keeping  it  within  the  power  of  the  ministry  to  influence  and  con- 
trol it  in  the  minor  official  bodies.  It  was,  however,  such  a  long 
stride  in  advance,  that  it  was  received  almost  with  acclamations 
by  the  brethren,  particularly  those  who  were  diligently  manoeu- 
vring for  a  union  on  any  terms  that  would  save  them  from  the 
poverty  of  the  new  situation. 

J.  G.  Whitfield,  from  a  committee  on  Dr.  Deems's  fraternal 
relation,  reported  flattering  resolutions  and  "gratification  at  a 
movement  designed  and  adapted  to  promote  increasing  brotherly 
love  between  the  members  of  our  own  and  our  sister  denomina- 
tion." Dr.  E,.  B.  Thomson  and  Kev.  F.  L.  B.  Shaver  were  ap- 
pointed Fraternal  Messengers  to  their  next  General  Conference. 
It  was  resolved  "  that  the  condition  and  necessities  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  are  such,  we  believe,  that  a  General  Con- 
vention is  required  for  the  promotion  of  its  interests,"  and  the 
Annual  Conferences  are  recommended  to  consider  it  and  elect 
delegates  to  such  a  Convention,  to  meet  in  Montgomery,  Ala., 
first  Tuesday  in  May,  1867,  provided  certain  articles  and  sections 
of  the  Constitution  be  excepted  from  change.  It  was  adopted 
after  much  discussion;  and  it  may  be  noted  that  the  excepted 
parts  do  not  include  Article  XII.,  on  suffrage  and  eligibility  to 
office  involving  the  word  "white."  The  special  committee  on 
Bishop  M'Tyeire's  communication  reported  at  length,  reviewing 
and  affirming,  "In  the  opinion  of  your  committee,  this  General 
Conference  has  not  authority  to  act  in  the  premises,  this  power 
being  alone  with  the  people;  but  the  commission  they  appointed 
are  recommended  and  invited  to  confer  with  the  Convention  to  be 
called  for  Montgomery  in  1867,  or,  in  default,  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Church  in  May,  1870,  by  which  time  their  Annual 
Conferences  would  have  decided  to  accept  or  reject  the  'Lay- 
Eepresentation '  plan  adopted  at  New  Orleans,"  etc.  The  minutes 
were  then  read  and  aj^proved,  and  the  Conference  adjourned,  after 
singing  the  569th  hynin,  and  prayer  by  Dr.  Waters,  having  been 
in  session  nine  days. 

The  Convention  of  Conferences  on  the  Book  Concern  and  Peri- 
odical met  May  5,  J.  G.  Whitfield  called  to  the  chair,  and  J.  L. 
Michaux,  Secretary.  The  report  of  the  Book  Directory  was  sub- 
mitted by  the  editor,  J.  T.  Murray.    It  was  adopted,  but  does 


470  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


not  appear  in  the  minutes  or  in  the  church  paper.  J.  T.  Murray 
was  reelected  editor  by  twenty-two  out  of  twenty-five  votes  cast. 
Thomas  W.  Ewing  was  elected  agent.  Complimentary  resolu- 
tions were  passed  on  the  brethren  who  had  acted  as  editors,  and 
one  expressing  the  loss  of  the  Church  at  the  "  sad  and  untimely 
end  "  of  Eev.  E.  Yeates  Reese.    The  Convention  adjourned. 

An  informal  meeting  of  the  members  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence was  held,  during  its  session,  in  the  Alexandria  church,  Vir- 
ginia, which  was  addressed  by  brethren  from  the  South  reciting 
the  calamities  of  the  war,  the  sufferings  and  deprivations  of  the 
people,  and  the  destruction  of  church  property,  especially  in 
Virginia,  both  the  Federal  and  the  Confederate  armies  often  trav- 
ersing the  section  where  Reform  people  were  principally  located. 
The  narrations  often  brought  the  large  congregation  to  tears.  In 
after  years  reclamation  was  made  for  some  of  this  property,  and 
successfully,  as  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Va.,  and  many  other  cases  are 
still  before  the  Court  of  Claims,  never  to  be  adjudicated,  in  all 
probability,  allowance  being  made  only  when  the  property  had 
been  utilized  for  army  purposes. 

A  Convention  was  called  of  New  England  ministers  and  lay- 
men, in  equal  proportion,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
which  met  in  Boston,  June  5,  1866.  It  was  announced  that  no 
debatable  questions  would  be  introduced,  but  papers  read  and 
addresses  made  on  general  subjects.  It  was  a  unique  assembly, 
566  ministers  responding  and  599  laymen,  making  a  Convention 
of  1165,  not  to  name  the  spectators.  It  was  an  object-lesson  in 
Lay-Representation,  though  that  subject  was  not  discussed,  and 
did  much  to  further  it  indirectly,  the  ministers  discovering  that 
laymen  of  their  Church  were  not  stolid  dummies  who  could  ^ 
neither  think  nor  speak.  They  actually  shared  the  honors  with 
the  preachers,  and  parried  with  them  in  such  a  way  that  they 
were  looked  upon  with  surprised  admiration  by  their  "godly 
pastors." 

Fayette  R.  Buell,  an  educator  of  Westminster,  Md.,  projected 
a  college  for  both  sexes,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Maryland 
Annual  Conference.  A  site  was  selected,  commanding  a  prospect 
for  miles,  and  the  corner-stone  was  laid  with  appropriate  cere- 
monies. Rev.  Messrs.  R.  S.  Norris,  J.  T.  Ward,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse, 
Daniel  Bowers,  and  others  making  addresses  or  participating, 
September  6,  1866.  It  was  the  nucleus  of  AVestern  Maryland 
College. 

The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  having  determined  to  cele- 


o 

< 
o  «^ 


o  S 

O  oj 


O 


SUNDBY  CUBBENT  EVENTS  471 

brate  their  centenary,  quadrating  the  event  with  the  preaching  of 
Embury  in  New  York,  in  1766,  vast  preparations  were  made  to 
insure  it  as  a  financial  success  in  contributions  to  various  benevo- 
lences of  the  Church.  It  was  carried  out,  and  over  ^8,000,000 
subscribed,  a  large  portion  of  which  was  afterward  expended  in 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  in  missionary  efforts  to  establish  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  throughout  the  Southern  territory. 
Reform  people  in  Maryland  became  infected  with  the  centenary 
idea,  the  invitation  from  the  old  Church  to  participate  covering 
all  the  Methodisms,  coupled  with  an  open  door,  to  return  to  her 
bosom  if  disposed,  and  the  Annual  Conference  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  carry  out  the  plan.  It  worked  diligently  and  wisely, 
a  certificate  embellished  with  the  Conference  group  being  printed 
and  a  medal  struck  for  Sunday-school  use,  bearing  on  the  obverse 
a  profile  of  John  Wesley  and  the  reverse  appropriately  inscribed.^ 
Efforts  were  made  to  secure  subscriptions,  but  the  project  did 
not  succeed  largely,  except  at  West  Baltimore  station,  John 
Coates  subscribing  and  paying  $1000  to  the  Conference  super- 
annuated society,  and  other  brethren  making  liberal  additions 
for  sundry  objects,  notably  at  Georgetown,  D.  C.  The  distress  in 
the  South  had  called  for  the  practical  sympathy  of  the  people, 
and  there  were  no  rich  men  to  boost  the  enterprise.^  The  breth- 
ren North  and  West  did  not  enter  into  it,  the  Non-Episcopal 
Convention  absorbing  all  their  attention.  It  is  time  to  con- 
sider it. 

1  Several  hundred  of  these  medals,  in  perfect  condition,  are  in  possession  of  the 
writer,  waiting  for  some  suggested  use,  which  has  not  come  in  nearly  thirty  years. 
They  will  never,  perhaps,  be  anything  but  souvenirs. 

2  The  total  cash  receipts,  as  reported  by  the  committee  to  the  Maryland  Con- 
ference in  1868,  was  $7194.93.  Expenses,  $1320.66.  It  was  distributed:  To  the 
debt  of  Lexington  Street  church,  $4530.92 ;  to  the  relief  of  Broadway,  $642.77 ; 
to  Delaware  Mission,  $130.00;  Potomac  Mission,  $86.37 ;  balance  in  hand,  $483.65. 
In  the  light  of  future  events  all  this  aggregate  sum  was  lost  practically,  except 
that  to  Broadway  church,  which  is  still  in  possession. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


The  Xon-Episcopal  Methodist  Convention  of  May,  1866  —  Synopsis  of  its  proceed- 
ings; difficulties  of  coalescence;  extreme  views;  final  adjustment  —  General 
Conferences  at  Cleveland  and  Allegheny  respectively  to  adopt  the  conditions ; 
meanwhile  Constitution  and  Discipline  to  be  formulated  — Proceedings  of  the 
Allegheny  Conference ;  roster  of  members ;  dissentients  in  North  Carolina 
recognized  ;  steps  taken  to  recognize  the  doings  of  the  Cincinnati  Convention 
of  Non-Episcopals ;  latitudinarian  drift,  as  to  the  appointments  of  preachers, 
in  the  General  Conference  —  A  number  of  the  prominent  Wesleyans  fall  away 
from  the  compact  ;  betray  their  friends  and  return  to  the  M.  E.  Church ;  de- 
fault of  the  Union  movement ;  carrying  with  it  disaffection  in  the  North  and 
"West  to  the  new  Church,  baptized  as  "The  Methodist  Church"  —  Decease  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Holcombe  with  sketch  —  Union  with  the  M.  E.  Church,  South  pro- 
posed—  More  "  Union  "  schemes. 

The  "Minutes  of  the  Non-Episcopal  Methodist  Convention, 
held  in  Cincinnati,  0.,  May  9-16,  1866,"  now  before  the  writer, 
occupy  fifty-six  closely  printed  octavo  pages.  Only  a  digest  can 
be  given  in  this  work,  specially  as  its  relation  to  the  Methodist 
Protestants  of  either  section  is  but  incidental.  "  The  Represent- 
atives and  Delegates  "  assembled  at  Union  chapel.  Rev.  Zachariah 
Ragan  being  called  to  the  chair,  and  Rev.  John  McEldowney, 
Secretary.  The  roll  of  the  Convention  showed:  Methodist  Prot- 
estants: West  Virginia,  twenty,  thirteen  absent;  Pittsburgh, 
sixteen,  two  absent;  Muskingum,  twenty-one;  Ohio,  eighteen; 
Boston,  two,  one  absent;  New  York,  six,  three  absent;  New 
Jersey,  four,  two  absent;  Onondaga,  four;  Genesee,  four;  Penn- 
sylvania, two,  one  absent;  Indiana,  four;  Michigan,  five,  two 
absent;  West  Michigan,  four;  Wabash,  three;  North  Illinois, 
four;  Illinois,  four;  South  Illinois,  four,  two  absent;  Iowa,  two; 
North  Iowa,  four,  two  absent;  Missouri,  two;  North  Missouri, 
two,  one  absent;  Nebraska,  two,  one  absent;  Oregon,  one,  one 
absent.  Wesleyan  Methodist  Connexion :  New  York,  one ;  Roch- 
ester, three,  two  absent;  Syracuse,  two;  Allegheny,  six,  four 
absent;  Central  Ohio,  six;  Michigan,  seven,  two  absent;  Indiana, 
five,  one  absent;  Miami,  four;  Iowa,  four,  one  absent.  Inde- 
pendent Churches :  Union  chapel,  Cincinnati,  two;  Union  chapel, 

472 


NOK-EPISCOPAL  METHODIST  CONVENTION,  1866  473 


Livonia,  Mich.,  one;  Sumpter,  Mich.,  one.  Quite  a  list  of  hon- 
orary members  was  submitted,  and  their  names  entered,  most  of 
them  men  eminent  in  their  denominations,  and  the  roll  was  in- 
creased from  day  to  day,  until  the  assembly  was  promiscuous, 
with  one  intent,  however,  in  the  outward  seeming  at  least  — 
Union. 

It  became  evident  that  there  were  not  a  few  Church  politicians, 
and  State  politicians  among  them,  and  some  who  finally  illus- 
trated the  Saviour's  declaration,  "Wheresoever  the  carcass  is, 
there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together."  The  Methodist 
Protestants  were  in  the  numerical  majority,  and  gave  evidence 
that  they  were  for  fair  play  and  an  honest  count.  The  committee 
on  Permanent  Organization  reported  for:  President,  Rev.  S.  A. 
Baker  of  the  Wesleyans ;  for  Vice-Presidents,  Dr.  John  Scott  and 
P.  T.  Laishley  of  the  Methodist  Protestants,  Dr.  Luther  Lee  and 
Cyrus  Prindle  of  the  Wesleyans,  and  Rev.  C.  Moore  of  the  Inde- 
pendents; for  Secretaries,  Rev.  J.  McEldowney,  Wesleyan,  and 
Rev.  G.  B.  McElroy,  Protestant.  The  Champlain  Conference, 
which  had  gone  in  a  body  to  the  Wesleyans  on  account  of  the 
slavery  matter,  now  addressed  this  Convention,  in  lieu  of  a  dele- 
gation, distance  the  excuse,  and  set  forth  their  views  favoring 
this  Union  on  certain  conditions ;  to  wit,  "  absolute  local  church 
independency,  as  opposed  to  a  central  judicial  power  in  the  body," 
and  "secret  oath-bound  societies."  These  two  conditions,  the 
sequel  will  show,  were  the  rock  on  which  the  whole  project  was 
wrecked.  Another  large  batch  of  brethren  were  accorded  honor- 
ary seats,  and  all  this  class  were  allowed  votes  on  some  of  the 
fundamental  enactments  of  the  Convention.  The  committee  on 
Basis  of  Union  was :  George  Brown,  Luther  Lee,  C.  Moore,  Cyrus 
Prindle,  J.  S.  Thrap,  D.  B.  Dorsey,  H.  B.  Knight,  S.  B.  Smith, 
R.  Rose,  G.  W.  Bainum,  John  Burns,  S.  M.  Short,  G.  G.  Westfall, 
Messrs.  E.  R.  Hall,  A.  M.  Searles,  A.  Backus,  J.  W.  Bush,  E.  Star- 
buck,  H.  Cassell,  M.  Thompson,  George  Johnson,  W.  W.  McCas- 
lin,  G.  Hendricks,  and  John  Redman. 

The  Convention  proceeded  to  work  at  once,  and  on  the  second 
day  the  committee  offered  Elementary  Principles  for  adoption. 
They  are  those  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  reduced  from 
eleven  to  ten  by  a  little  ingenious  garbling,  omission,  and  addi- 
tion. It  must  have  been  thought  an  improvement  even  by  those 
who  knew  them  in  their  original  shape,  for  they  were  unanimously 
adopted  by  a  standing  vote,  honorary  members  and  all.  Then 
came  in  order  the  committee's  report  on  "a  Constitution."  It 


474 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


is  a  patchwork  of  the  two  Methodist  bodies  represented.  Two 
names,  as  a  Church  style  and  title,  were  earnestly  pressed: 
"  United  Methodist "  by  the  Wesleyans,  and  "  Methodist "  by  the 
Protestants,  the  latter  finally  being  carried  by  a  vote  of  107  to  24. 
A  daily  United  Methodist  paper  was  published  during  the  pro- 
ceedings. A  motion  to  vote  by  denominations  on  the  final  adop- 
tion of  the  Basis  of  Union  was  rejected.  A  paper  on  the  existing 
civil  condition  of  the  country,  with  advice  to  Congress  and  ex- 
hortation to  President  Johnson,  couched  in  denunciatory  adjec- 
tives of  all  who  entertained  any  other  views  than  those  of  the 
author  of  the  paper,  was  offered  and  pressed,  and  delayed  by  the 
more  conservative  element  of  the  Convention.  Every  few  days 
some  member  offered  a  resolution  reflecting  his  political  views. 
These  iterations  at  last  provoked  that  loyal  and  Christian  man, 
Eev.  Alexander  Clark,  to  offer  a  paper  offsetting  these  resolves, 
the  gist  of  it  being,  "  It  has  not  been  thought  by  the  members  of 
this  Convention  to  be  legitimate  business  to  introduce  questions 
that  belong  exclusively  to  individual  conscience  or  national  poli- 
tics." Reported  favorably  by  a  committee,  it  was,  however, 
substituted  after  a  long  and  warm  debate  by  a  semi-political 
manifesto  on  a  yea  and  nay  vote  of  eighty-one  to  four.  There 
was  much  excuse  for  extreme  views.  It  takes  a  community 
flushed  with  the  victory  of  their  moral  and  political  sentiments 
over  a  prostrate  foe  a  long  time  to  recover  its  Christian  reason. 
A  year  before,  just  as  the  Civil  War  closed,  the  brethren  of  the 
New  York  Conference  made  a  deliverance  concluding  with  these 
words,  "that  expediency,  constitutional  law,  justice,  and  the 
Bible,  all  unite  in  demanding  that  at  least  some  of  the  principal 
leaders  of  the  rebellion  be  punished  with  death." 

The  "secret  oath-bound  society"  question  gave  much  trouble 
and  was  handled  cautiously.  It  was  declined  to  make  such  a 
test  a  part  of  the  corporate  law  of  the  new  Church,  while  senti- 
mentally acknowledging  that  it  had  much  force.  Out  of  it  came 
a  singular  action  in  its  final  disposition,  the  Convention  taking 
precisely  the  position  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  prior  to  the  war :  "  Whereas  this  Convention 
has  left  all  moral  questions  with  the  local  churches,  recognizing 
their  right  to  determine  their  own  tests  of  membership,"  etc. 
The  sequel  will  show  that  this  did  not  satisfy  the  Wesleyans,  any 
more  than  the  same  position  satisfied  the  West  and  Xorth  under 
the  agitation  against  slavery  as  a  moral  question.  Rev.  L.  C. 
Matlack,  one  of  the  original  SVesleyans,  was  an  honorary  member. 


NON-EPISCOPAL  ''UNION''  BY  '-'RESOLVES''  475 


and  gave  intimation  from  time  to  time  that  with  three  or  four 
other  prominent  ministers  of  the  old  Church  he  was  present  to 
watch  the  course  of  events  and  to  give,  if  possible,  a  trend  to  the 
Convention  that  would  commit  it  to  general  Methodistic  Union, 
as  proposed  by  the  last  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church. 
Rev.  Dr.  Luther  Lee,  another  original  member  of  the  Wesleyans, 
was  a  delegate,  but  seems  to  have  taken  no  prominent  part;  he 
watched  and  waited,  but  was  so  outwardly  friendly  to  this  move- 
ment that  no  one  suspected  that  he  had  ulterior  purposes,  with  a 
number  of  others.  ThQ  Constitution  was  matured  and  passed, 
and  a  committee  appointed  to  prepare  a  Discipline  to  harmonize 
with  it,  to  report  to  a  "  General  Conference  "  of  the  new  Church, 
third  Wednesday  in  May,  1867,  at  Cleveland,  0.,  while  the 
"  Methodist  Protestant  Church  "  was  to  meet  in  a  "  General  Con- 
ference "  six  months  earlier,  or  on  the  12th  of  November,  1866, 
at  Allegheny  City,  Pa.  Meanwhile  the  work  done  was  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  respective  Annual  Conferences  of  both  the  con- 
tracting parties  for  adoption  or  rejection.  The  "Primitive"  and 
the  "  Free  "  Methodists  ^  were  invited  to  participate  in  the  ensu- 
ing General  Conference  with  the  same  ratio  of  representation, 
one  of  each  class  in  every  thousand.  No  "  Union  "  on  paper  was 
ever  more  predetermined,  and  the  Convention  adjourned  in  a  gale 
of  enthusiasm,  not,  however,  before  brother  S.  Eodman,  a  warm- 
hearted layman  from  the  Illinois  Conference,  had  moved,  and  it 
was  "Resolved  that  the  bodies  herein  represented  consider  the 
Union  complete  now  and  forever,  amen ! "  nor  before  "  Dr.  Lee 
had  tendered  his  resignation  as  a  member  of  the  committee  to 
prepare  an  Address  to  the  Churches  —  not  accepted."    On  a 

1  The  Methodist  Centennial  Year  Book  of  1884  makes  no  mention  of  either  of 
these  minor  bodies  in  America,  though  very  elaborate  in  its  statements  of  all 
others.  The  Primitives  are  a  small  organization  in  New  York  and  the  Eastern 
states,  still  adhering  to  the  mother  Primitives  of  England.  They  number  prob- 
ably less  than  5,000,  and  with  a  liberal  form  of  polity  overtures  have  been  sug- 
gested with  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  at  different  times.  The  Free 
Methodists  are  largely  confined  to  Western  New  York,  with  scattered  small  con- 
ferences West  and  farther  South.  Their  organization  dates  from  1860,  owing  to 
some  alleged  arbitrary  ruling  of  Bishop  Simpson.  They  are  old  time  "  Metho- 
dist as  to  dress,  wearing  of  gold,  and  are  in  absolute  opposition  to  all  secret 
societies,  as  are  the  Wesleyans.  They  number,  perhaps,  30,000.  Later,  Novem- 
ber, 1897,  this  foot-note  needs  correction,  as  follows:  — 

Fall  River,  Mass.,  September  21.  — The  General  Conference  of  the  Primitive  Methodist 
Church,  which  is  meeting  here,  has  chosen  Rev.  John  Mason,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  general  sec- 
retary ;  Rev.  H.  G.  Russell,  Rev.  Geo.  Lee,  Aaron  Rowell,  and  others,  executive  conamittee. 
The  statistical  report  shows  73  ministers,  90  churches,  6,122  members,  and  church  property 
valued  at  $426,756.   The  next  Conference,  in  1901,  will  be  held  at  Scranton,  Pa. 


476 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


motion  to  adjourn,  the  President,  S.  A.  Baker,  made  a  congratu- 
latory address,  and  after  singing  two  verses  of  the  hymn :  — 

"And  let  our  bodies  part, 
To  different  climes  repair," 

and  prayer  by  Dr.  George  Brown,  the  Convention  adjourned  sine 
die. 

Dr.  Lee,  June  6,  1866,  wrote  to  the  Western  Methodist  Protes- 
tant an  approval  of  its  action  and  his  purpose  to  work  "with 
heart  and  will  to  finish  up  the  Union,"  etc.  The  True  Wesleyan, 
however,  spoke  cautiously  of  it.  The  committee  to  formulate  a 
Discipline  met  at  Springfield,  0.,  in  July,  1866,  Dr.  Luther  Lee, 
G.  W.  Bainum,  and  G.  B.  Smith,  of  \Yesleyans,  and  George  Brown, 
John  Scott,  and  J.  S.  Thrap  of  Methodist  Protestants,  being 
present.  A  draft  was  made  and  published  in  the  Western  paper, 
principally  the  work  of  Dr.  Luther  Lee,  who  was  domiciled  for 
the  time  with  Dr.  John  Scott,  and  he  gave  no  sign  of  disloyalty 
to  the  Methodist  Union  it  proposed.  The  sequel  of  the  Wesleyan 
disaffection  toward  the  Union  shall  be  considered  later.  It  was 
evident  to  not  a  few  in  the  North  and  West  that  these  proceedings 
foreshadowed  a  total  and  final  separation  of  the  brethren  from 
the  East  and  South  in  a  new  denomination.  Union  chapel,  Cin- 
cinnati, where  the  Convention  was  held,  demurred,  which  led  to 
the  resignation  of  the  pastor.  Rev.  Alexander  Clark,  who  was 
committed  to  the  new  order  of  things.  Dissentients  elsewhere 
found  themselves  in  a  helpless  minority.  There  was  much  dis- 
cussion and  difference  of  opinion  anent  this  reconstruction  in 
the  Western  paper  as  to  its  legal  and  logical  effects.  The  editor. 
Dr.  John  Scott,  reviewing  the  question  in  October,  1866,  a  month 
before  the  "  General  Conference "  of  the  brethren  was  held  in 
Allegheny  City,  Pa.,  made  admissions  which  were  regarded  in 
the  East  and  South  as  logically  fatal  to  their  claim  as  "The 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  "  in  the  event  of  the  Xon-Episcopal 
Union.    (See  Baltimore  paper,  Xovember  3,  1866.) 

"  Proceedings  of  the  Ninth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  held  in  Allegheny  City,  Pa.,  November  14-22, 
1866."  This  is  the  title-page  of  its  printed  proceedings,  sixty- 
four  pages.  The  salient  matters  are  as  follows:  Dr.  John  Scott 
was  called  to  the  chair,  and  J.  H.  Hamilton  and  T.  B.  Graham, 
Secretaries.  A  list  of  representatives  showed  these  brethren 
present :  — 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  ALLEGHENY  CITY,  1866  477 


Ministers 
N.  R.  Swift 


E.  A.  Wheat 


Onondaga 


GSNESEB 


Laymen 
George  White 

Nicholas  Hiller 


Muskingum 


J.  S.  Thrap 
J.  W.  Southard 
J.  L.  Scott 
William  Hastings 
W.  PI.  Marshall 
Joseph  H.  Hamilton 


H.  E.  H.  Hartsock 
J.  Manley 
Thomas  Chambers 
Francis  Scott 
Daniel  Chandler 


Pittsburgh 


John  Scott 
John  Cowl 
George  Brown 
Valentine  Lucas 
William  Reeves 


T.  B.  Graham 
Jonathan  M.  Flood 
Reuben  Rose 
M.  B.  V.  Euana 
A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  J.  White 


Ohio 


R.  H.  Marshall 
William  Rinehart 
John  Redman 
William  Miller 
John  Sargent 


T.  Douglass 
William  Gunckel 
G.  W.  Kent 


E.  D.  Stultz 


New  Jersey 


Tobias  Finkbine 
P.  J.  Strong 


0.  P.  Carlton 


North  Illinois 


Missouri 


W.  F.  Hughes 


Samuel  Morrison 


New  York 


Indiana 


A.  Seaman 


John  Kost 


Michigan 


478 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Western  Michigan 
Ministers  Laymen 

0.  F.  Howland 

North  Iowa 

George  M.  Scott 

Letters  from  the  following  representatives-elect  were  read: 
Daniel  Wait  of  Wisconsin,  W.  W.  Tipton  of  Nebraska,  and  G. 
Williams  of  North  Missouri. 

Permanent  officers  were  elected:  John  Scott,  President,  and 
J.  J.  White  and  E.  R.  Wheat,  Secretaries.  A  committee  on  Xon- 
Episcopal  Union  of  this  country  was  appointed :  George  Brown, 
R.  Rose,  W.  Hastings,  J.  Sargent,  G.  M.  Scott.  The  regular 
standing  committees  were  appointed  by  the  chair.  Rev.  J.  B. 
Walker,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Missions,  made 
"  a  report  of  a  self -constituted  Board  having  for  its  object  the 
education  of  young  men  preparing  for  the  ministry  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church.'^  Report  of  "The  Commissioners  to 
visit  Adrian  College  "  was  offered.  A.  H.  Bassett  made  a  state- 
ment outlining  his  career  as  Publishing  Agent  from  1855  to  1864, 
vindicatory  of  his  official  conduct.  Board  of  Ministerial  Educa- 
tion was  formed,  and  a  Constitution  submitted.  The  committee 
on  the  Sixth  Street  church  of  Cincinnati,  and  the  action  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference  in  recognizing  it  without  concurrence  of 
the  Ohio  Conference,  reported  it  "  irregular,"  but  softly  passed 
it  over.  The  Board  of  Missions  reported  ^10,513.71  had  been 
collected  during  the  quadrennium  and  disbursed.  A  new  Board 
was  elected:  Euans,  Bassett,  Snowden,  Gunckel,  Evans,  John- 
son, and  located  at  Springfield,  and  Rules  and  Regulations  for 
its  guidance  formulated. 

The  following  trustees  of  the  Endowment  Eund  of  Adrian  Col- 
lege were  named:  J.  S.  Thrap,  J.  Fordj^ce,  Z.  Ragan,  T.  A.  Reed, 
J.  J.  Gillespie,  R,  H.  Marshall,  J.  Redman,  J.  Whetstone,  G. 
Brown,  N.  R.  Swift,  R.  Rose,  T.  J.  Finch,  J.  B.  Walker,  J.  J. 
White,  W.  Gunckel,  J.  M.  Flood,  A.  H.  Bassett,  J.  J.  Smith, 
J.  M.  Mayall,  J.  Kost,  James  Ross,  H.  Stackhouse,  A.  Mahan, 
E.  D.  Stultz.  The  Constitution  and  Discipline  adopted  at  the 
Cincinnati  Convention  was  presented  by  Dr.  Brown,  and  the 
points  made  that  twenty  of  twenty-four  Annual  Conferences  had 
indorsed  the  Union  of  the  Xon-Episcopal  Convention,  one  made 
no  report,  and  the  other  three  yet  to  act.    It  was  also  found  that 


J.  S.  THRAP, 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  PROCEEDINGS  479 


"twenty-four  conferences  have  clothed  their  representatives  to 
this  body  with  full  conventional  power  and  authority  to  so  change 
the  Constitution  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  to  enable 
our  denomination  in  an  orderly  way,  through  this  Conference,  to 
place  itself  under  the  ecclesiastical  economy  agreed  upon  at  the 
Cincinnati  Convention."  The  new  Constitution  and  Discipline 
were  passed  by  items,  and  then  "adopted  as  a  whole."  New  Con- 
ference boundaries  were  set,  and  the  petition  from  "  Jamestown, 
N.  C,"  for  recognition,  on  the  complaint  that  they  were  "  isolated 
by  rebellion  and  oppression,"  was  favorably  entertained  and  re- 
solves made  of  sympathy  and  "  prayer  to  God  for  their  protection 
from  tyranny  and  oppression";  therefore  they  are  set  off  as  a 
district,  to  be  known  as  the  "North  Carolina  District  of  the 
Methodist  Church ; "  and  that  the  Conference  be  requested  to 
send  representatives  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  at  Cleve- 
land. "We  also  recommend  that  all  territory  of  the  United 
States  not  embraced  in  this  report  be  considered  '  missionary 
ground,'  to  be  occupied  and  assisted."  The  brethren,  however, 
did  not  practically  attempt  to  carry  out  this  resolve  for  reasons 
other  than  those  prompting  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in 
its  raid  upon  Southern  territory.  The  war  had  ended  eighteen 
months  before,  and  in  after  years  they  discovered  that  they  had 
been  deceived  by  these  malcontents  as  to  their  numbers,  character, 
and  influence,  so  that  in  the  Union  Convention  of  1877  they  sent 
no  representatives,  and,  refusing  to  coalesce  with  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Conference  of  North  Carolina,  were  left  in  a  few  years 
to  find  other  associations  befitting  their  political  status. 

The  publishing  interests  were  formally  placed  under  the 
"General  Conference,"  and  an  "investigating  committee"  ap- 
pointed to  consider  its  affairs,  and  a  suggestion  of  a  removal  of 
the  location  from  Springfield  to  some  other  more  eligible  situa- 
tion. But  slight  changes  were  made  in  the  Ritual  as  found  in 
the  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Dr.  John 
Scott  was  reelected  editor.  J.  S.  Thrap  having  declined  a  re- 
nomination  from  the  Board  of  Publication  for  the  position  of 
Agent,  on  the  fifth  ballot  A.  H.  Bassett  was  elected  by  a  majority 
of  one  vote.  The  name  of  the  Church  paper  was  changed  to  the 
Methodist  Recorder  and  of  the  Sunday-school  paper  to  Sabbath- 
School  Methodist.  A.  H.  Bassett  reported  statistics  as  follows : 
itinerants,  618;  unstationed  ministers  and  preachers,  474;  mem- 
bers, 43,164;  churches,  525;  parsonages,  110;  value  of  church 
property,  $961,350.    Reuben  Rose  was  elected  Corresponding 


480 


HISTOET  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Missions,  and  J.  B.  Walker,  Corre- 
sponding Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Ministerial  Education.  Dr. 
Brown  was  requested  to  prepare  a  "History  of  tlie  Methodist 
Protestant  Church."  The  title  "Metliodist  Protestant"  was 
ordered  stricken  out  of  "our  book  of  Discipline"  wherever  it 
occurs,  and  the  new  name  "Methodist"  substituted  in  "all  our 
chartered  institutions."  The  report  on  Church  Union  recom- 
mended that  "the  Constitution  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  in  all  its  obstructing  parts,  be  and  the  same  is  hereby 
so  changed,  repealed,  and  set  aside,  by  action  of  this  General 
Convention,  having  full  conventional  powers  to  do  this  act,  as  to 
enable  the  said  Church  to  adopt  the  Constitution  and  Discipline 
agreed  upon  at  the  Cincinnati  Convention  in  May,  1866."  Also 
"that  throughout  this  whole  Union  movement,  we  have  acted 
in  good  faith  toward  all  parties  concerned,  and  in  the  fear  of 
God;  and  now  in  the  final  consummation  in  humble  faith  and 
prayer  we  ask  the  divine  blessing  on  all  that  we  have  done." 
George  Brown,  chairman. 

The  Convention  resolved  itself  again  into  the  "  General  Confer- 
ence," and  finally  adjourned  with  an  address  from  Dr.  Brown. 
John  Scott,  President;  J.  J.  White  and  E.  A.  Wheat,  Secre- 
taries. Appended  to  the  minutes  is  a  full  text  of  the  new  Con- 
stitution and  Discipline,  prefaced  with  a  new  historical  statement, 
which  rehearses  in  brief  the  history  of  English  and  American 
Methodism,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  the  Wesleyan  Connexion,  and  the  Methodist 
Church.  The  Articles  of  Keligion  are  amended  by  the  addition 
of  three :  on  Belative  Duties,  the  Eesurrection  of  the  Body,  and 
of  the  General  Judgment.  Among  the  constitutional  provisions 
is  the  following:  "All  ministers  and  licentiates  who  are  labor- 
ing under  the  direction  of  the  Conference  shall  be  at  liberty  to 
enter  into  negotiations  to  serve  any  pastoral  charge  for  one  year 
from  the  next  session  of  the  Conference;  and  it  shall  be  the  duty 
of  all  ministers  and  licentiates  and  churches  having  entered  into 
such  arrangements  to  report  the  same  to  the  Conference  at  its 
next  session."  This,  coupled  with  the  restriction,  "or  which 
shall  prevent  the  maintenance  of  an  itinerant  ministry,"  seem  to 
give  the  law  of  the  new  Church  to  be  that  of  annual  appoint- 
ments, but  with  no  restriction  as  to  time  and  no  control  of  ap- 
pointments by  the  Conferences  themselves,  if  otherwise  provided 
for  by  negotiation.  The  latitudinarian  drift  of  this  regulation 
wrought  much  connectional  damage,  and  though  it  has  not  been 


NON-EPISCOPAL  UNION,  A  ''HOPE  OF  SAND''  481 


the  law  of  the  reunited  Church  since  1877,  in  the  West  and  North, 
it  is  still  constructively  observed  as  of  effect,  but  a  growing  reac- 
tion promises  to  arrest  the  congregational  trend.  On  the  whole 
reconstruction,  Dr.  Scott,  who  took  so  active  a  part  in  it,  says  in 
his  last  book,  "Fifty  Years":  "By  this  action  the  name  of  the 
Church  was  changed  from  Methodist  Protestant  to  the  Methodist 
Church.  But  this  change  was  made  by  a  body  clothed  with  con- 
ventional powers,  and  having  authority  according  to  our  own  law 
to  do  so,  and  was  perfectly  legal.  In  the  exercise  of  the  powers 
with  which  we  were  clothed,  we  so  changed  our  own  Constitution 
and  Discipline  as  to  make  them  harmonize  with  the  Constitution 
and  Discipline  provided  by  the  Union  Convention,  and  so  our 
part  toward  the  Union  of  the  various  bodies  therein  represented 
was  accomplished,  and  still  we  were  perfectly  intact  as  a  denomi- 
nation, our  organization  being  complete." 

Meantime  not  a  few  of  the  leaders  in  this  Non-Episcopal 
Methodist  Union  were  quietly  making  arrangements  to  return  to 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  "  Tell  it  not  in  Gath,  publish 
it  not  in  the  streets  of  Askelon!"  Let  Dr.  Scott  again  express 
his  disappointment.  "It  soon  became  evident  that  the  Union, 
if  anything,  would  be  far  from  what  had  been  hoped.  Many  of 
the  Wesley  an  leaders  proved  unfaithful,  not  only  to  other  churches 
which  were  parties  to  the  union,  but  to  their  own  church,  and 
the  great  body  of  the  Wesleyans  backed  out  of  the  union  alto- 
gether. I  had  been  in  correspondence  with  Dr.  Luther  Lee  until 
within  a  week  of  our  General  Conference,  and  he  still  professed 
great  devotion  to  the  union  movement,  and  expressed  his  purpose 
to  be  at  our  Conference,  if  he  could  make  the  necessary  financial 
arrangements  to  do  so.  He  did  not  come,  however,  and  before 
our  Conference  was  over,  I  heard  that  he  had  returned  to  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  I  was  never  more  shocked  in  my 
life.  I  could  not  understand  it.  I  have  no  hard  things  to  say 
about  Dr.  Lee.  I  had  esteemed  him  very  highly,  but  he  disap- 
pointed me  sorely.  I  had  one  or  two  of  his  books,  but  I  could 
not  consult  them  with  satisfaction,  and  I  gave  them  away.  I 
never  met  him  afterward,  or  had  any  communication  with  him. 
Dr.  Cyrus  Prindle,  Dr.  L.  C.  Matlack,  Dr.  H.  Mattison,  Rev. 
S.  B.  Smith,  and  others,  leaders  in  the  union  movement,  and  who 
had  uttered  the  severest  things  against  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  all  went  back  to  that  Church.  Most  of  them  are  dead 
and  I  hope  are  in  heaven,  but  they  went  by  a  way  I  would  not 
choose." 

VOL.  II  —  2  I 


482 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


While  the  brethren  were  cementing  the  Union  hard  and  fast 
at  Allegheny,  the  Michigan  Conference  of  the  Wesleyans,  their 
strongest  and  most  influential,  was  having  a  three  days'  discus- 
sion over  it,  and  it  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five  to  twenty- 
nine.  The  minority  withdrew  from  the  Conference  in  the  heat 
of  the  decision,  so  that  disunion  among  themselves  was  the  fruit 
in  this  and  other  instances.  They  discovered  that  they  would  be 
in  the  minority  in  the  new  Church,  and  officialism,  that  bane  of 
all  honest  attempts  of  the  membership  for  union,  could  not  brook 
the  probable  loss  of  occupation,  and  "  ecclesiastical  finesse  "  did 
the  rest.  In  the  Western  Virginia  Conference  a  division  arose 
so  serious  that  it  was  determined  as  the  only  solution  that  the 
societies  and  the  preachers  should  make  choice  whether  they 
would  be  Methodist  Protestants  or  "Methodists,"  and  fully  one- 
half  came  back  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  They  rea- 
soned that  it  was  more  than  they  could  understand  how  Methodist 
Protestant  Conferences  could  "separate"  from  each  other,  and 
then  resolve  that  the  separating  section  was  the  original  Church, 
and  then  resolve  again,  by  conventional  action  among  themselves, 
that  they  would  enact  a  new  Constitution  and  Discipline,  and 
rename  themselves  "The  Methodist  Church,"  and  still  legally 
and  logically  remain  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  It  was 
too  much  for  the  brethren,  and  they  vaulted  back  on  the  right 
side  of  the  fence.  About  the  same  thing  occurred  in  the  Penn- 
sylvania Conference.  In  Illinois  a  respectable  body  adhered  to 
the  East  and  South  on  the  same  theory,  known  as  the  South 
Illinois  Conference,  and  also  in  Missouri  about  Des  Moines. 
Individual  congregations,  like  that  of  Union  chapel,  Cincinnati, 
did  likewise;  all  was  not  serene. 

The  Baltimore  official  paper,  under  the  editorship  of  J.  T. 
Murray,  from  the  General  Conference  of  May,  1866,  to  March, 
1867,  was  ably  conducted;  but  the  impoverished  South  was  slow 
in  responding  to  its  support,  so  that  it  was  found  that  the  Book 
Concern  had  incurred  a  net  loss  of  near  $1000  for  the  current 
year,  which  made  it  a  necessity  in  the  judgment  of  the  Directory 
that  recourse  should  be  had  again  to  the  uncompensated  editorial 
service  of  the  city  ministers  as  a  committee.  The  change  was 
made,  and  for  the  ensuing  year  the  paper  was  conducted  by  Dr. 
S.  B.  Southerland,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  and  Daniel  Bowers. 

Bev.  W.  J.  Holcombe,  M.D.,  departed  this  life  February  21, 
1867.  He  was  born  March  1,  1798,  in  Amelia  County,  Va.,  was 
graduated  from  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  removed  to 


GLOOMY  SOUTHERN  OUTLOOK 


483 


Lynchburg,  Va.,  where  he  successfully  practised  for  many  years. 
Converted  in  1822,  he  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  was  soon  licensed  to  preach,  joining  with  his  ex- 
tensive practice  regular  Sabbath  preaching,  with  great  popularity 
in  both  callings.  He  was  refused  ordination  because  a  Reformer 
and  a  patron  of  the  Mutual  Rights,  and  was  among  the  Expelled 
at  Lynchburg  in  1828.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Conference  of  the  new  Church.  He  was  a  man  of  large 
culture  and  literary  gifts,  and  was  by  the  Richmond  Medical 
Journal  rated  at  the  head  of  his  profession.  Like  Judge  Hopper 
of  Maryland,  he  was  an  emancipationist,  freeing  his  slaves;  and 
subsequently  coming  into  the  possession  of  about  one  hundred 
more  through  a  relative,  he  removed  in  1840  to  Indiana,  that 
within  a  free  State  he  might  carry  out  the  provision  of  the  will 
which  declared  their  freedom  unless  he  continued  to  reside  in  a 
slave  State.  He  returned  to  Amelia,  Va.,  in  1855,  where  he  re- 
mained until  his  death.  Like  Judge  Hopper  also,  he  raised  no 
issue  with  his  slaveholding  Christian  neighbors,  and  preferred  to 
spend  his  closing  days  in  their  society.  He  issued  late  in  life 
an  octavo  volume  of  his  poems,  but  the  venture  was  a  financial 
disaster.  He  expired  suddenly  of  heart  disease.  The  funeral 
was  preached  in  the  Lynchburg  church  by  Rev.  Dr.  R.  B.  Thom- 
son, and  his  remains  deposited  in  the  Presbyterian  cemetery. 

The  call  for  a  Convention  to  meet  at  Montgomery,  Ala.,  in 
May,  1867,  provoked  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  throughout  the 
East  and  South,  but  it  was  favored  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  Ala- 
bama, and  Mississippi,  the  strongest  conferences.  North  Caro- 
lina held  aloof,  and  some  of  the  smaller  conferences,  but  they 
all  elected  representatives  in  the  contingency  of  its  assembling. 
South  of  the  Potomac  the  membership  was  poverty-stricken,  large 
sections  of  the  country  desolated,  church  property  destroyed,  and 
a  pall  of  gloom  spread  over  a  disintegrated  organization.  Largely 
the  same  condition  of  things  obtained  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  but  with  desperate  energy  they  set  to  repairing 
their  waste  places,  and,  as  found,  popularized  their  Church  govern- 
ment with  a  lay-delegation,  for  some  time  favored  by  many  of 
their  leading  preachers,  and  now  stimulated  by  the  resolves  of 
Protestant  Conferences  under  a  combination  of  brethren  who  kept 
themselves  in  correspondence  with  the  bishops,  for  a  Union  on 
its  introduction  as  a  compromise  of  differences.  The  commis- 
sioners the  General  Conference  of  the  Church  South  had  ap- 
pointed in  May,  1866,  were  active  in  furthering  the  scheme. 


484 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Thirty-odd  thousands  of  Methodist  Protestants  would  help  to 
recoup  their  losses  and  give  them  a  united  front  for  Methodist 
evangelization  in  the  South.  Hence  individual  offers  from  min- 
isters, and  even  from  Conferences,  were  discouraged;  they  said 
they  did  not  wish  to  disintegrate,  but  have  Union  as  a  Church. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  a  man  clothed  and  well  fed  cannot 
appreciate  the  appeal  any  prospect  for  material  betterment  made 
to  these  bare  and  hungry  preachers.  A  number  of  leaders  in 
Virginia  came  to  Baltimore  and  proposed  as  a  last  resort  that 
Maryland  should  man  some  of  their  fields  with  her  single  men 
and  receive  as  many  as  possible  of  their  married  men  in  the 
emergency.  It  was  not  entertained,  not  being  thought  practica- 
ble, because  Maryland,  while  approving  the  call  for  a  Conven- 
tion, more  for  the  power  it  would  give  over  certain  portions  of 
the  Constitution  than  any  serious  idea  of  Union  with  the 
Church  South,  as  a  border  state  Conference  had  not  seceded, 
and  composed  largely  of  "  Union  preachers  so  called,  all  of  them 
conservative,  it  was  a  menace  to  its  conferential  integrity,  and 
the  proposal  was  clearly  a  sectional  one.  The  formation  of  the 
"Methodist "  Church  out  of  the  Xon-Episcopal  Union  Convention 
seemed  to  cut  off  all  hope  of  a  future  restored  continental  Metho- 
dist Protestantism.  It  was  a  perplexing  situation  for  the  largest 
and  strongest  of  the  Conferences,  but  for  these  very  reasons 
covetous  eyes  were  turned  upon  it  from  every  direction.  The 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  had  appointed  commissioners  to 
treat  with  any  Methodists  who  would  like  to  be  taken  in,  housed, 
and  fed.  It  will  be  seen  that  a  delegation  came  to  the  Maryland 
Conference  making  loving  tenders.  In  fine,  "Union,"  as  the 
several  parties  understood  it,  filled  the  very  air.  Thoughtful 
and  loyal  men  to  the  principles  and  the  memories  of  good  men 
who  had  suffered  for  them  heard  these  dulcet  notes  with  sus- 
picion. The  sequel  will  show  that  the  result  of  all  this  "ecclesi- 
astical finesse"  was  to  make  farther  disunion  in  the  East  and 
South,  as  "  Union  "  had  done  for  the  Xorth  and  West.  These 
were  the  circumstances  in  which  the  Montgomery  Convention 
assembled. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


The  Montgomery,  Ala.,  Convention  of  May,  1867;  roster  of  members;  J.  J.  Mur- 
ray, President;  C.  W.  Button  and  F.  H.  M.  Henderson,  Secretaries  —  The  Com- 
missioners of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  were  introduced,  and  a  committee  to 
confer  with  them  appointed ;  minor  changes  in  Discipline  proposed ;  provision 
for  colored  conferences  —  The  overshadowing  business  was  the  proposal  of  the 
Church  South  for  Union;  the  more  it  was  canvassed  the  less  the  brethren 
understood  the  terms  as  interpreted  by  Bishops  Pierce  and  M'Tyeire,  Revs. 
Bros.  Lee  and  Evans;  the  Conference  replied  in  fifteen  propositions;  "ecclesi- 
astical finesse"  operating  on  both  sides;  reference  ordered  to  the  Annual 
Conferences  of  both  Churches  ;  the  "  managers  "  of  the  Union  scheme  baffled ; 
Commissioners  retire,  and  the  whole  scheme  died  of  inanition  —  Convention 
adjourned  —  Holston  Conference  organized  —  Great  Sabbath-school  demon- 
stration in  Baltimore ;  five  thousand  computed  present  —  Decease  and  sketch 
of  Rev.  Eli  Henkle  and  Dr.  Francis  Waters  — A  lay-delegation  in  the  M.  E. 
Church  proposed  and  carried  ;  an  emasculated  thing  in  their  General  Confer- 
ence of  1872  —  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church  at  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
in  May,  1867 ;  roster  of  members ;  the  Wesleyans  do  not  attend ;  disappoint- 
ment, and  resolves  to  cover  the  awkward  situation ;  synopsis  of  its  doings ; 
statistics,  etc.  —  Adrian  College  transferred  from  the  legal  trustees  to  the 
"Methodist"  Church. 

On  the  first  day,  May  7,  1867,  of  the  seventy-one  representa- 
tives elected  to  the  Montgomery  Convention,  but  thirteen  were 
present  at  the  roll-call.  W.  C.  Lipscomb  of  Maryland  was  called 
to  the  chair,  and  F.  H.  M.  Henderson  of  Georgia  made  Secretary. 
It  adjourned  to  meet  at  9  a.m.  the  next  morning.  It  was  then 
found  that  a  quorum  was  present.  Others  arrived  from  time  to 
time,  so  that  the  full  roster  of  those  elected  was  as  follows :  — 


Maryland 


Ministers 
W.  C.  Lipscomb 


Laymen 
T.  A.  Newman 


J.  J.  Murray 
L.  W.  Bates 


W.  D.  Massey 
A.  Donelson 
Wm.  Turpin 


S.  B.  Southerland 


J.  K.  Nichols 
Daniel  Bowers 


W.  H.  Wheatley 
L.  J.  Cox,  Jr. 
B.  H.  Richardson! 
John  Coates  ^ 
Richard  Thomas  i 


H.  F.  Zollickoffer 


John  Roberts 
D.  E.  Reese 


1  Absent. 
485 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


North  Carolina 


Ministers 
W.  H.  Wills 
T.  H.  Pegram 
J.  L.  Michaux 

C.  F.  Harris 

W.  B.  McRoberts 
Alson  Gray  i 
Johu  Paris  i 
W.  C.  Kennetti 
A.  W.  Lineberryi 

R.  B,  Thomson  1 
J.  G.  Whitfield 
G.  R.  Barr 
Wm.  McGee 

D.  B.  Smedley 
S.  K.  Cox 

L.  L.  Hill 
J.  C.  Davis 

F.  H.  M.  Henderson 
S.  C.  Masters  1 

P.  H.  Napier 

A.  A.  Houston 

B.  F.  Duggan 

B.  F.  Perry  1 

C.  McSmith  i 

E.  C.  G.  Nickensi 

G.  F.  A.  Spilleri 
Isaiah  C.  Wallace  i 


Virginia 


Alabama 


Georgia 


Mississippi 


Laymen 

G.  J.  Cherry 

L.  W.  Batchelor 
Henry  Walser^ 
D.  M.  Lee  i 
S.  V.  Pickens  1 
W.  A.  Coei 
W.  A.  Coble  1 
John  F,  Harris! 
M.  C.  Whitakeri 

C.  W.  Button 

H.  B.  Woodhousei 
Wm.  Harding  1 

M.  T.  Peebles! 

B.  S.  Bibb 
P.  T.  Graves 
J.  B.  Clayton 

C.  E.  Crenshaw 

John  Bass 


Peter  Loper 


North  Mississippi 

W.  R.  Montgomery 


Tennessee 


Indiana 


R.  H.  Whitakeri 


I.  Burkheadi 


South  Carolina 

J.  G.  Grant  1 

South  Illinois 

J.  W.  Newton  1 

West  Tennessee 

George  Reems^ 


Louisiana 


1  Absent. 


E.  Heami 


MONTGOMERY  CONVENTION  OF  1867  487 


Thirty  out  of  seventy-one  were  absent.  Considering  the  dis- 
ruption of  the  railroads  and  the  poverty  of  the  men  the  attend- 
ance was  remarkable. 

Bishops  Pierce  and  M'Tyeire,  Eev.  Dr.  L.  M.  Lee,  and  Kev. 
J.  E.  Evans  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Church  South  were 
introduced.  On  the  election  for  permanent  officers,  J.  J.  Murray, 
on  the  second  ballot,  was  elected  President,  and  C.  W.  Button 
and  F.  H.  M.  Henderson,  Secretaries.  Communications  were  re- 
ceived from  Bev.  John  Sexsmith  of  Des  Moines,  111.,  and  also 
from  Bev.  W.  W.  Tipton,  President  of  the  Illinois  Conference. 
The  Standing  Committees  were  named  by  the  chair.  The  official 
papers  from  the  Commission  of  the  Church  South  were  presented 
and  addresses  made  by  Bishops  Pierce  and  M'Tyeire,  Dr.  L.  M. 
Lee,  and  Kev.  J.  E.  Evans,  responded  to  by  the  President  and 
sundry  brethren.  A  resolution  was  passed  to  appoint  one  minister 
and  one  layman  from  each  Conference  represented  to  confer  with 
them  as  a  Commission.  The  President  named  them  as  follows : 
W.  H.  Wills,  G.  J.  Cherry,  J.  G.  Whitfield,  C.  W.  Button,  S.  B. 
Southerland,  L.  J.  Cox,  Jr.,  B.  F.  Duggan,  F.  L.  B.  Shaver, 
P.  T.  Graves,  F.  H.  M.  Henderson,  John  Bass,  P.  H.  Napier, 
Peter  Loper,  A.  A.  Houston,  W.  E.  Montgomery.  It  will  be 
observed  in  the  occurrence  of  names  that  alternates  were  substi- 
tuted for  principals  in  the  Alabama  list  as  given  in  the  roster, 
making  F.  L.  B.  Shaver,  Isaac  Spangler,  and  Edmond  Harrison 
members. 

The  gist  of  the  Church  South  papers  was :  "  Union  between  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  with  power  to  settle  terms  of  union."  The  Commissioners 
in  a  letter  defined  their  understanding  of  this  "power":  "We 
propose  a  formal  and  corporate  union  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South  and  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  .  .  .  We 
propose  a  union  with  your  ministers,  itinerant  and  local,  and 
your  members,  each  in  their  several  relations,  and  entitled  to  all 
the  rights  and  privileges  common  to  our  own  ministers  and  mem- 
bers under  the  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South."  It  will  be  developed  that  there  is  an  essential  difference 
after  all,  between  tweedledee  and  tweedledum  as  thus  defined. 
An  hour  was  spent  by  the  Conference  in  a  love-feast,  or  class- 
meeting  experience,  very  refreshing  and  spiritual.  The  Maryland 
brethren  had  taken  with  them  the  sum  of  $800  for  distribution 
in  the  South,  and  it  was  so  disposed  of  to  the  most  needy.  A 
Des  Moines  Mission  Conference  was  created  and  the  Illinois 


488  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


recognized.  The  Florida  had  ceased  to  exist,  leaving  eighteen 
adhering  Conferences.  Sundry  amendments  were  made  to  the 
Constitution  and  Discipline;  the  most  important  was  a  change  in 
the  relative  position  of  the  word  "  white  "  in  Article  12th,  so  as 
to  extend  the  inclusive  force  to  ministers  and  preachers  as  well 
as  members,  a  question  heretofore  referred  to  in  this  History. 
"  The  Monthly  Meeting "  in  stations  was  made  a  feature  of  tiie 
Discipline,  but  it  has  fallen  into  desuetude.  The  next  General 
Conference  was  appointed  for  East  Baltimore  station,  Baltimore, 
Md.  A  movement  was  inaugurated  for  the  appointment  of  a 
Conference  Missionary  in  each  of  the  Conferences  where  needed, 
to  "organize  the  colored  people  into  societies  for  instruction  and 
evangelization,  as  shall  comport  with  the  genius  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  and  for  the  formation  of  Annual  Conferences 
of  their  own  under  the  style  of  .  .  It  was  further  amended: 
"It  is  highly  desirable  that  we  retain  our  colored  membership  in 
our  own  connection,"  etc.  Under  this  encouragement  various 
conferences  of  the  colored  brethren  were  organized,  and  a  number 
now  exist  in  the  South. ^  The  ratio  of  representation  was  fixed 
at  one  of  each  class  in  every  thousand  members. 

The  overshadowing  subject  occupying  the  attention  of  the  Con- 
vention was  the  proposal  from  the  Church  South  already  cited. 
The  Committee  of  Conference  held  numerous  interviews  with  the 
Commissioners  of  that  Church,  and  the  more  they  conferred  the 
less  the  brethren  seemed  to  be  able  to  understand  the  interpreta- 

1  A  secession  took  place  from  the  A.  M.  E.  Church  in  Maryland  in  the  year 
1848,  and  they  adopted  substantially  the  Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  at  a  meeting  at  St.  Thomas's  Church,  Baltimore. 
Some  years  prior  to  this  period  there  had  been  organized  principally  in  Maryland 
and  Delaware  the  African  Union  Methodist  Protestant  Churcli,  taking  the  Book 
of  the  ^Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  their  polity  with  such  chansres  as  would 
adapt  it  to  their  condition.  These  two  branches  had  a  temporary  Union,  but  for 
a  number  of  years  have  been  working  on  independent  lines.  The  African  Union 
is  much  the  larger  body,  with  some  able  preachers,  and  a  number  of  churches 
well  organized  in  the  territory  named.  A  small  monthly  paper.  The  Daicn,  has 
been  issued  semi-ofRcially  by  them  under  the  charge  of  Kev.  Brother  Scott,  for  a 
number  of  terms,  also  President  of  their  Conference.  The  writer  has  been  un- 
successful in  securing  their  statistics.  Rev.  Brother  Lee,  President  of  the  Colored 
Methodist  Protestant  Conference  furnishes  the  following  for  his  Church.  No 
extant  records  between  1848  and  1881,  at  which  latter  date  they  claimed  15  min- 
isters and  preachers,  5  churches,  and  3  missions,  and  about  400  members,  and 
500  Sabbath-school  scholars.  Between  1881  and  1896  they  lost  2  churches  by  de- 
fault of  ground  rent,  9  ministers  by  death  and  withdrawals,  received  13  ministers 
and  4  preachers.  They  now  claim  4  churches,  8  missions,  200  members,  with  12 
Sabbath-schools  and  2(10  scholars.  The  African  Union  was  a  secession  from  the 
colored  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 


ABSORPTION  AND  NOT  UNION  INTENDED  489 


tion  placed  upon  the  action  of  the  Church  South  as  made  by  the 
commissioners  present.    It  slowly  dawned  upon  them,  however, 
after  the  first  answer  was  made  to  their  proposal.    It  covered 
fifteen  points,  made  upon  the  supposition  that  the  Commissioners 
were  empowered  to  "settle  terms  of  union."    Essentially  they 
called  for  a  change  of  the  united  Church  style  and  title;  the 
abolition  of  the  Eldership;  the  creation  instead  of  as  many 
bishops  as  Annual  Conferences;  the  right  of  appeal  of  ministers; 
no  veto  power  of  the  bishops ;  no  transfer  without  the  consent  of 
the  party;  the  parity  of  local  and  itinerant  preachers;  equal  dele- 
gation in  the  Annual  Conferences;  the  vote  by  order;  the  first 
newly  elected  bishops  to  be  taken  from  the  Protestant  brethren; 
their  system  for  trial  of  members;  the  Maryland  Conference 
autonomy  to  be  guaranteed,  etc.    It  is  an  open  secret  that  several 
of  these  points  were  made  by  brethren  opposed  to  the  "  Union  " 
altogether  —  riders  to  kill  the  bill.    The  "  ecclesiastical  finesse  " 
developed  on  both  sides.    The  Commissioners  made  reply  in 
order.    And  now  it  became  clear  even  to  hazy  vision  that  what 
was  proposed  was  not  "Union,"  but  Absorption.    The  ministers 
and  officials  would  be  received  into  the  Church  South  and  the 
members  would  be  received  also ;  but  not  a  vanishing  point  was 
to  be  left  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  such.    And  yet 
over  the  reply  which  made  this  fact  manifest  the  brethren  higgled 
and  disputed  and  took  votes  by  ayes  and  nays  and  entered  upon 
the  journal  explanations  of  their  votes,  and  a  number  of  them 
finally  uttered  a  protest  against  the  whole  farcical  business.  The 
brethren  who  in  their  individual  and  conferential  capacity  had 
presumed  to  speak  for  the  whole  Church  in  their  letters  and  per- 
sonal interviews  with  the  bishops,  etc.,  found  themselves  in  an 
embarrassing  position;  they  could  not  deliver  the  goods. 

The  final  action  was  that  "the  Convention  take  no  decisive 
action  at  this  time,  .  .  .  and  that  a  commission  of  one  from  each 
Conference  be  appointed  to  call  another  Convention  at  Lynch- 
burg, Va.,  in  May,  1868,"  in  certain  contingencies,  and  this  was 
amended  to  the  effect  that  if  the  Convention  was  not  called,  then 
the  next  "  General  Conference  "  of  the  Church  should  be  held  in 
1870.  The  commissioners  of  the  Church  South  took  their  formal 
leave  with  courteous  greetings  and  resolves,  the  hand-in-glove 
brethren  relieving  the  disgust  these  commissioners  could  not  alto- 
gether disguise,  as  much  as  possible.  And  so  ended  a  fiasco  as 
notable  as  that  of  the  Non-Episcopal  Union  Convention  of  the 
brethren  North  and  West,  but  attended  with  much  more  disas- 


490 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


trous  results.  It  is  but  fair  to  state  that  literally  the  bishops 
were  beguiled  into  the  part  they  took  by  the  resolves  of  the  Ala- 
bama, Mississippi,  and  Virginia  Conferences.  The  fifteen  points 
presented  were  never  submitted  by  them  to  their  Annual  Con- 
ferences, as  suggested,  and  the  "Union"  of  the  two  Churches 
was  abandoned  mutually.  They  soon  began  the  work  of  "  taking 
into  their  Church  "  the  preachers  and  people  individually,  and  as 
Annual  Conferences  piecemeal,  but  always  at  the  invitation  of 
those  who  had  predetermined  to  unite  with  them.  The  full  text 
of  the  papers  on  the  subject  may  be  found  in  the  Appendix  to  the 
minutes  of  this  Convention.  A  Board  of  Missions  was  elected  by 
the  Convention,  with  location  in  Baltimore,  as  follows:  S.  B. 
Southerland,  W.  C.  Lipscomb,  J.  J.  Murray,  H.  F.  Zollickoffer, 
L.  J.  Cox,  E.  C.  Thomas,  John  Coates,  B.  H.  Richardson,  Wil- 
liam Bond,  J.  G.  Clark,  A.  J.  Fairbank,  and  James  Bond.  The 
Convention  adjourned,  after  a  night  session,  on  the  tenth  day; 
its  business  was  hurried,  as  the  representatives  had  painful  re- 
minders of  the  impoverished  condition  of  their  whole-souled 
hosts  which  forbade  a  strain  upon  such  self-denying  hospitality. 
Prayer  was  offered  by  the  oldest  member.  Rev.  W.  C.  Lipscomb, 
at  the  close.  J.  J.  Murray,  President;  C.  W.  Button  and  F. 
H.  M.  Henderson,  Secretaries.  The  printed  proceedings  occupy 
forty-four  octavo  pages. 

The  New  York  Metliodist,  under  Dr.  Crooks,  refuted  elaborately 
Dr.  Bond's  "purse-string"  argument  of  1827,  and  so  it  received 
at  last  its  death-wound  in  the  house  of  its  friends,  August,  1867. 
In  November,  1867,  the  Philadelphia  lay-delegation  reformers, 
as  a  step  furthering  their  plans,  practically  reorganized  the 
"  Union  Societies  "  of  the  Reformers  of  1824-.30;  it  did  not  occur 
to  them  that  they  could  not  legitimately  do  so  as  members  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  disci- 
pline them  for  so  doing.  A  Holston  Annual  Conference  was 
organized  out  of  parts  of  the  West  Virginia  and  the  Virginia  and 
the  Tennessee  Conferences  in  the  winter  of  1867,  with  George 
Barr  as  President,  at  Russellville,  Tenn.  (See  official  paper, 
January  4,  18G8,  and  August  29,  1868.^)    Bowdon  College  was 

1  The  organization  took  place  December  13, 18G7,  and  the  first  Plan  of  Appoint- 
ments was  as  follows:  George  R.  Barr,  President;  Abingdon  Station,  G.  R.  Barr; 
Good  Hope  Circuit,  W.  T.  White ;  Jonesville,  J.  K.  Mickle;  Rye  Cove,  John  Rasnie; 
Guess's  River,  Samuel  Stallard,  W.  H.  Bond  and  H.  Stallard,  assistants;  Provi- 
dence, J.  R.  Thompson,  J,  G.  Johnson,  assistant,  and  James  Thompson,  super- 
assistant;  Hopewell,  S.  B.  Sizemore,  J.  M.  Slaughter  and  W.  Wallace,  assistants; 
Paint  Mountain,  N.  J.  Roberts;  Buncombe,  J.  P.  Eller;  Saltsville  Mission,  G.  R. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ''UNION''  SCHEME 


491 


reorganized  in  Georgia,  January,  1868.  The  churches  of  Balti- 
more determined  upon  a  great  Sabbath-school  demonstration  in 
its  interest.  It  was  held  at  the  Maryland  Institute,  the  largest 
hall  then  in  the  city,  in  March,  1868,  and  proved  a  great  success. 
It  was  the  Sabbath  of  the  Maryland  Conference  meeting,  and  the 
entire  body  was  seated  on  the  platform.  At  first  but  half  the 
great  hall  was  opened,  but  as  the  Sabbath-schools  with  the  at- 
tendant church  members  and  interested  friends  filed  in,  the 
remaining  half  was  opened,  and  yet  the  number  surging  in  over- 
crowded the  building,  and  not  a  few  could  not  find  admittance. 
It  was  estimated  that  between  four  and  five  thousand  children 
and  adults  were  present.  A  programme  of  music,  and  addresses 
by  Eev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  Luther  Martin,  Esq.,  and  Eev.  W.  S. 
Hammond  occupied  the  time,  and  the  assembly  dispersed.  The 
Annual  Conference  for  the  year  1867  had  reported  a  net  gain  of 
about  eight  hundred,  and  that  of  1868  a  net  gain  of  about  one 
thousand,  or  ten  per  cent.  These  things  greatly  encouraged 
the  churches  in  this  central  position,  and  the  hope  inspired  went 
out  and  saved  perhaps  the  utter  disintegration  of  the  denomina- 
tion in  the  South  under  the  wileful  influences  now  at  work  for 
"Union."  The  Maryland  Conference  also  took  action  on  the 
question,  and  recited  that  the  fifteen  propositions  which  were 
submitted  at  Montgomery  for  reference  to  the  Annual  Confer- 
ences of  the  Church  South,  and  accepted  as  such,  had  not  been 
submitted,  and  information  having  been  received  that  the  com- 
missioners had  indicated  that  no  other  terms  than  those  offered 
would  be  proposed  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  i.e.  ab- 
sorption into  its  ministry  and  membership,  adverse  recommenda- 
tion was  made  as  to  the  expediency  of  the  Convention  named  for 
May,  1868,  not  passing  upon  its  unconstitutionality,  which  had 
been  by  this  time  clearly  exposed,  as  the  instrument  made  no 
such  provision  for  its  own  destruction;  and  the  Commissioner 
made  announcement  that  no  such  Convention  would  be  held. 

In  the  old  Church  the  lay-delegation  question  was  of  paramount 
interest,  not  a  few  of  their  Annual  Conferences  resolving  in  its 
favor,  and  numerous  memorials  and  petitions  again  going  up  to 
the  General  Conference  of  1868,  to  be  held  at  Chicago.  The 
New  York  Methodist  was  manfully  marshalling  the  forces,  and 

Barr;  Clinch  Mission,  J.  P.  Johnson;  Poplar  Creek  Mission,  Wm.  Petty;  French 
Branch  Mission,  W.  L.  Worthington.  No  list  of  laymen  is  given.  Dr.  M.  T. 
Peebles  has  furnished  me  a  detailed  and  reliable  history  of  the  Holston  Confer- 
ence, which  is  preserved  among  the  archives  of  the  writer  for  reference. 


492 


UISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Philadelphia  swarmed  with  Methodist  Reformers.  Almost  single- 
handed,  and  with  a  courage  and  persistence  worthy  of  a  better 
cause,  and  assuming  the  fallen  mantle  of  Dr.  T.  E.  Bond,  Sr., 
Rev.  Dr.  Hodgson  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  entered  the 
lists  and  out-Heroded  Herod  with  his  extreme  and  unrelenting 
opposition  to  lay-delegation  in  any  form.  He  was  possessed 
with  a  species  of  clericomania  and  averred  that  from  the  time  of 
Constantine  onward  the  division  of  ecclesiastical  responsibility 
with  the  laity  was  the  "  source  of  untold  woes,"  and  extended  his 
gratulations  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Cliurch  that  Methodism 
guided  by  the  providence  of  God  had  shunned  this  mystery  of 
iniquity."  He  passed  away,  however,  before  his  righteous  soul 
could  be  shocked  at  the  profanation  of  the  Methodist  Temple  by 
the  presence  of  laymen. 

Obituary  of  Rev.  Eli  Henkle  of  the  Maryland  Conference, 
August  24,  1867,  in  the  eighty-first  year  of  his  age.  He  was  born 
in  Pendleton  County,  Va.,  April  15,  1787,  his  father  being  an  itin- 
erant of  that  day.  The  father  raised  a  family  of  nine  sons  and 
two  daughters,  and  six  of  the  sons  became  preachers  of  the  gospel, 
perhaps  an  unexampled  case.  Eli  was  converted  in  his  youth,  in 
his  twentieth  year,  1807,  he  was  received  by  appointment  of  the 
Presiding  Elder  into  the  work,  and  continued  until  1813,  then 
located  until  1815,  when  he  resumed  until  1824;  then  he  again 
retired,  and  this  closed  his  connection  with  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church.  He  was  a  radical  Reformer  from  the  first,  the 
John  Knox  of  the  American  Methodist  reformation.  He  took  an 
active  part  in  the  early  Conventions  and  did  much  to  mould  the 
new  Church.  He  was  elected  President  of  the  Maryland  Confer- 
ence in  1830,  succeeding  Nicholas  Snethen,  and  again  in  1846, 
1847,  1848.  One  of  the  sweetest  of  singers  and  deeply  spiritual, 
with  a  lucid,  plain,  practical  style,  he  won  a  high  place  with  the 
people  as  an  evangelical  preacher.  He  lived  to  see  the  Church 
he  had  done  so  much  to  found  established  on  a  sure  basis,  and 
rejoiced  in  it,  continuing  steadfast  as  a  rock  to  its  principles. 
Time  touched  him  lightly  on  his  farm  in  Baltimore  County,  where 
lie  peacefully  met  the  last  enemy.  The  obsequies  took  place  in 
Mount  Gilead  church,  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  ^lurray,  and  he  was  laid 
to  rest  in  its  cemetery.  A  memorial  service  was  held  at  West 
Baltimore  station,  September  29,  1867,  Dr.  Francis  Waters  offici- 
ating, and  other  senior  ministers.  As  of  rather  rare  occurrence. 
Dr.  William  Hamilton  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Cliurch  sent 
a  written  tribute,  and  Rev.  John  Baer  of  the  same  Church,  both 


WORTHr  DECEASED  REFORMERS 


493 


of  them  old  colleagues,  attended  the  services.  (See  Colhouer's 
"Founders,"  pp.  238-243.) 

Daniel  Perrigo,  an  early  Baltimore  Keformer,  died  February 
1,  1868;  Rev.  William  Griffin  of  Georgia,  aged  eighty-two,  Re- 
former, March  28,  1868;  Rev.  Ulysses  Ward,  early  Reformer, 
of  Maryland,  an  unstationed  minister,  a  liberal  contributor,  a 
wise  counsellor,  and  firm  adherent  of  the  Church,  and  father  of 
Rev.  Dr.  J.  T.  Ward  :  obituaries  April  11,  1868,  and  May  16, 
1868.  He  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  consistent  Christian ;  services 
at  his  residence  in  Washington,  D.  C,  by  Rev.  W.  C.  Lipscomb, 
a  lifelong  friend,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  P.  Newman,  now  Bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  the  writer;  Rev.  Thomas 
Burgess  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  early  Reformer,  May  2, 
1868. 

Rev.  Francis  Waters,  A.M.,  D.D.,  died  April  23,  1868,  in  the 
seventy-seventh  year  of  his  age,  at  his  residence  in  Baltimore 
city.  He  was  born  January  16,  1792,  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of 
Maryland,  of  religious  parents ;  his  early  education  received  their 
first  care;  and  after  an  elementary  course  he  was  entered  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  was  honorably  graduated  in 
1810.  He  then  read  law,  but  was  led  to  abandon  it  for  the 
Christian  ministry,  and  received  ordination  in  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  His  evident  bent  was  teaching,  so  he  took 
charge  of  Washington  Academy  in  Somerset  County,  Md.,  and 
on  the  30th  of  December,  1817,  was  elected  to  the  Presidency  of 
Washington  College,  Chestertown,  Md.,  before  he  was  twenty-six 
years  of  age.  He  resigned  in  1823,  and  returned  to  his  home  in 
Somerset,  and  remained  in  the  peaceful  pursuits  of  farming  until 
1828,  when  he  moved  to  Baltimore,  opened  a  private  school, 
which  developed  into  the  academy  at  Franklin,  near  Baltimore. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  Reform 
movement  in  Methodism.  While  he  did  not  write  voluminously, 
every  touch  of  his  pen  was  masterful,  and  was  felt  by  friend  and 
foe  as  unanswerable.  In  1840  he  took  part  in  a  Convention  of 
the  new  Church,  his  connection  with  which  has  been  already 
detailed  in  these  pages,  reflecting  honor  upon  himself  and  the 
cause  he  had  espoused,  which  was  held  in  Baltimore,  and  among 
its  results  was  the  Windsor  Academy,  a  theological  and  literary 
institute,  which  continued  about  three  years,  and  at  which  several 
useful  ministers  were  educated.  Returning  to  the  city,  he  united 
with  Drs.  R.  H.  Ball  and  A.  A.  Lipscomb  in  a  first-class  female 
seminary,  of  which  he  was  Principal ;  but  in  1853  he  was  elected 


494  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Principal  of  the  Baltimore  High  School,  which  he  resigned  at 
the  earnest  solicitation  of  the  trustees  of  Madison  College,  at 
XJniontown,  Pa.,  but  which  he  was  compelled  in  turn  to  resign, 
owing  to  the  ill-health  of  his  wife.  He  then  consented  to  a  second 
election  to  the  Presidency  of  Washington  College,  Md.,  where  he 
remained,  useful  and  respected  by  all  who  knew  him,  until 
January,  1860,  when  he  retired  to  Baltimore  and  spent  his  de- 
clining years  in  the  quiet  of  his  home.  As  a  writer,  ecclesiastic, 
and  teacher  evidence  has  been  given,  and  as  a  preacher  he  was 
transparently  clear  but  unemotional,  classical  and  at  the  same 
time  spiritual;  a  graceful  delivery  with  a  commanding  presence, 
being  tall  and  erect,  clear-cut  in  features,  and  of  noble  bearing, 
gave  his  public  efforts  a  wide  influence  and  reverent  hearing. 
He  frequently  occupied  the  pulpits  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  before  high  church  tendencies  enforced  the  canon  against 
such  courtesies.^  He  was  a  member  of  the  Maryland  Annual 
Conference  from  the  beginning,  sustaining  a  supernumerary  rela- 
tion by  special  favor  of  the  body  and  in  recognition  of  his  eminent 
services  to  Keform.  A  severe  fall,  which  superinduced  pneu- 
monia, resulted  in  a  tedious  illness.  Softening  of  the  brain  set 
in,  and  apoplexy  closed  his  earthly  career.  The  funeral  sermon 
of  this  ideal  Christian  gentleman  was  preached  by  Dr.  L.  W. 
Bates,  and  his  remains  laid  to  rest  in  Greenmount  cemetery. 
(See  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  182-192.) 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
stimulated  from  within  by  the  growing  pressure  for  lay-delegation 
and  from  without  by  the  example  of  the  representative  Metho- 
disms  in  their  success,  and  the  introduction  of  the  feature  into 
the  Church  South,  led  to  a  favorable  consideration  of  the  subject, 
and  a  plan,  emasculated,  it  is  true,  as  are  all  the  schemes  adopted 
in  the  hierarchic  branches,  of  lay-delegation  in  the  General  Con- 
ference was  formulated.  It  was  the  scantiest  recognition,  the 
proportion  about  that  of  one  in  three  of  the  ministers,  which  was 
to  be  submitted  to  the  Church,  and  if  a  majority  of  the  members, 
male  and  female,  favored  it,  then  it  was  to  be  passed  upon  by  the 
ensuing  General  Conference  of  1872  by  a  two-thirds  vote.   It  was 

1  Rev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates  is  authority  for  the  statement  received  from  Dr.  TVaters's 
own  lips,  that  during  tlie  years  of  his  residence  in  the  country,  on  his  visits  to 
Baltimore,  he  was  often  invited,  and  as  often  accepted  invitations,  to  preach  in 
the  St.  Paul's  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  corner  of  Charles  and  Saratoga  streets. 
It  indicates  the  change  for  the  worse  that  hat>  come  over  the  venerable  Church 
under  altitudinous  teaching  of  the  historic  Episcopate,  etc.  Think  of  a  Methodist 
preacher,  however  eminent,  preaching  at  St.  Paul's  in  these  days  I 


''METHODIST''  CHURCH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  1867  495 


hotly  contested  on  its  passage  in  1868,  the  old  Bourbons  predict- 
ing all  manner  of  evil,  but  they  went  down  chewing  the  last  bitter 
cud  of  opposition  to  a  scriptural,  rational,  and  inevitable  modifi- 
cation. The  official  paper  of  Baltimore  was  edited  for  1868  by 
J.  J.  Murray,  Augustus  Webster,  and  Daniel  Bowers.  Recon- 
struction of  Conferences  continued  in  the  South,  with  signs  of 
religious  revival,  but  side  by  side  with  it  went  on  the  work  of 
insidious  destruction  by  "  Union  "  with  the  Church  South.  The 
negotiating  parties  felt  that  they  had  gone  too  far  honorably  to 
withdraw,  as  they  understood  it,  so  that  with  or  without  the 
authority  of  law  or  the  membership  they  did  all  they  could,  not 
to  go  into  the  lap  of  the  old  South  Methodism  empty-handed  in 
an  ecclesiastical  sense. 

While  the  Convention  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  was 
in  session  in  Montgomery,  Ala.,  in  May,  1867,  the  "General 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church  "  was  in  session  at  Cleve- 
land, 0.,  May  15-22,  1867.  It  met  by  courtesy  in  the  Wesleyan 
church.  T.  B.  Graham  was  elected  permanent  President;  W.  H. 
Brewster,  J.  J.  Smith,  and  C.  Gray,  Vice-Presidents;  and  A.  H. 
Lowrie  and  T.  B.  Appleget,  Secretaries.  The  following  were 
declared  elected  Eepresentatives  to  the  Conference :  — 


New  York 


Ministers 
J.  J.  Smith 


Laymen 
Thos.  Brown  1 


Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  New  York  City 


S.  A.  Baker 


New  Jersey 


T.  B.  Appleget 


J.  M.  Brown  1 


Onondaga 


J.  H.  Richards 


Genesee 


N.  S.  Clark 


Thomas  Barclay 


Pittsburgh 


V.  Lucas 

J.  Scott,  D.D. 

G.  Brown,  D.D. 

Alex.  Clark 

W.  Reeves,  D.D. 


R.  H.  Marshall 
J.  Sargent,  M.D. 
J.  Redman 
W.  Miller 


1  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Adrian  (Mich.)  Church 
Ministers  Laymen 
Prof.  I.  W.  McKeever  Prof.  A.  H.  Lowrie 


W.  n.  Brewster 


Bbidgepokt  (Pa.)  Charge 


Second  Church,  Pittsburgh 
J.  B.  Graham  Geo.  Fawcett 


Mt.  Vernon  (0.)  Church 


H.  B.  Knight 


J.  Burns 
Z.  Ragan,  D.D. 
J.  H.  Hamilton 
C.  Springer 
G.  W.  Hissey 
E.  S.  Hoagland 
TVm.  Hastings 

R.  Rose 

J.  M.  Flood,  M.D. 
A.  H.  Bassett 
J.  J.  White 
T.  B.  Graham 
J.  B.  Walker 


R.  C.  Lanning 

L.  Mills 

H.  Stackhouse 

A.  S.  Bissell 


C.  Gray 

W.  E.  Martin 


R.  Wright  1 

W.  M.  P.  Quinni 


Muskingum 


Ohio 


Michigan 


M.  Thompson,  M.D. 


J.  Fordyce 
Henry  Cassell 

F.  Scott 

H.  E.  H.  Hartsock 
J.  Slosser 
J.  Wells 
J.  Springer  1 

Thos.  J.  Finch 
W.  Gunckeli 
T.  Douglas 
J.  G.  Rockhill 

G.  W.  Kenti 

J.  B.  McKinnon 


Chester  Cooley 


Western  Michigan 

Erastus  Williams 


Indiana 


Wabash 


T.  Hansel! 


Izri  Hall  i 


North  Illinois 


M.  Mead 

P.  F.  Remshurgh 


South  Illinois 


C.  Linki 
E.  Erwini 


1  Absent. 


WESLEYANS  CONSPICUOUSLY  ABSENT  497 


Ministers 
S.  P.  Kezerta 

S.  Jones  1 

G.  Williams 

Q.  Holton 
J.  M.  Young 
J.  C.  Nodurfti 

A.  J.  Chittenden! 


Wisconsin 


Minnesota 


Laymen 
B.  H.  Pritchard 


J.  E.  Bolls  1 


North  Missouri 


T.  L.  Jeffersi 


North  Carolina 


Nebraska 


Missouri 


J.  Thornton  1 


J.  Queen,  i 


O.  C.  Lyoni 

Wisconsin  (Wesleyan) 

 Webster  1 


MORGANTOWN  (W.  Va.)  ChURCH 

G.  G.  Westfall  J.  Canacoi 

Kansas 

J.  Biddison  ^  Jonathan  Watson  i 

California 

S.  B.  Duntoni 

Oregon 

D.  Bagleyi 

Twenty -five  out  of  eighty-six  were  absent.  But  four  ministers 
and  three  laymen  of  the  Wesleyan  Church  were  officially  present. 
The  whole  denomination  had  repudiated  the  Union,  as  well  as  all 
tlie  faculty  of  Adrian  College,  except  I.  W.  McKeever  and  A.  H. 
Lowrie.  Less  than  a  dozen  of  their  ministers  came  to  the  Metho- 
dist Church,  and,  as  already  recorded,  a  number  of  their  leading 
men  returned  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  while  the  body 
rallied  around  their  publishing  interests  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  and 
have  maintained  to  this  day  a  separate  existence  under  their 
peculiar  views  as  Methodists.^    The  situation  was  a  perplexing 

1  Absent. 

2  They  were  reputed  to  number  at  the  time  of  the  proposed  "  Union  "  about 
20,000,  Rev.  A.  J.  Jennings,  editor  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist,  their  official 
organ,  furnishes  me  with  these  statistics  up  to  date :  Membership,  18,141 ;  Sab- 

YOL.  II — 2  k 


498 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


one,  and  a  committee  on  "  Status  and  Eelation  "  reported  as  fol- 
lows, which  was  referred  as  the  sense  of  the  Conference :  Ee- 
solved,  that  we  regard  this  General  Conference  as  the  outgrowth 
and  culmination  of  the  Cincinnati  Convention;  and  the  action  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  General  Conference  at  Allegheny  City, 
in  November  last,  in  accepting  the  action  of  said  Convention,  as 
the  necessary  final  doings  of  the  late  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  by  which  it  became  the  nucleus  of  the  present  Methodist 
Church,  whose  interests  this  body  represents  and  has  in  charge." 
It  was  considered,  and  on  motion  subsequently  to  pass  it,  John 
Burns  moved  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  which  was  negatived.  Fi- 
nally the  committee  elaborated  it,  giving  substantially  the  same 
views,  and  it  was  passed,  the  expression  "  the  late  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church"  being  eliminated.  For  full  text  see  Document 
B,  Appendix  to  the  printed  Minutes.  Committee  on  new  hymn 
book :  William  Beeves,  Alexander  Clark,  J.  A.  Dorhman,  I.  W. 
McKeever,  W.  Binehart.  It  was  subsequently  prepared,  mostlyj 
by  Clark,  published  as  the  "Voice  of  Praise,"  and  continued  in] 
use  until  after  1880  in  the  North  and  AVest.  A  committee  on  a 
Catechism  w^as  appointed.  Dr.  Brown  offered  the  new  Discipline, 
which  had  been  prepared  to  harmonize  with  the  new  Constitution, 
which  was  finally  adopted  after  amendments.  John  Burns  offered 
the  following,  which  was  accepted:  "Each  Annual  Conference 
respectively  shall  have  power  to  make  its  own  rules  and  regula- 
tions in  regard  to  stationing  its  ministers  and  preachers,  provided 
it  shall  make  no  rule  inconsistent  with  the  Constitution  of  the 
Methodist  Church."  Adrian  was  fixed  upon  as  the  place  for  the 
ensuing  General  Conference,  third  Wednesday  in  May,  1871. 
The  name  of  the  Sunday-school  paper  was  changed  to  Sabbath- 
School  Recorder .  Bev.  John  Scott,  D.D.,  was  reelected  Editor, 
and  A.  H.  Bassett,  Agent  of  the  publishing  interests.  Among 

bath-schools,  465;  scholars,  18,344;  value  of  church  property,  including  churches, 
parsonages,  and  publishing  house  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  8580,472.24:  Theological 
School,  value,  §12,000;  teachers,  5;  missionary  collection,  .?G082.19;  donations, 
S40,000.  President  of  the  General  Conference,  Rev.  N.  Warder.  They  claim 
about  twenty  Conferences,  most  of  them  small.  The  support  of  their  official 
paper  and  publishing  house  is  their  forte,  having  a  subscriber  for  every  three 
or  four  of  their  membership,  an  unprecedented  number  in  any  denomination. 
No  member  of  a  secret  society  of  any  kind  can  be  a  member  of  this  Church, 
and  this  is  a  fundamental;  in  most  other  respects,  their  doctrine  and  discipline 
are  Methodist.  Their  conferences  are  confined  to  the  North  and  "West.  Between 
them  and  the  Free  Methodists  of  the  same  section  there  is  scarcely  a  point  of 
difference,  and  yet  they  preserve  distinct  organizations,  officialism  in  this,  as  in 
not  a  few  cases,  being  the  bar  to  illusive  organic  "Union"  among  American 
Methodists. 


''METHODIST'^  CUURCU  STATISTICS 


499 


the  Boundaries  prescribed  in  the  new  book  are  the  following: 
North  Carolina,  North  Carolina  (colored),  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
and  North  Georgia.  At  the  suggestion  of  "Rev.  Col.  Anderson," 
the  body  determined  that  they  would  act  through  the  American 
Missionary  Association  and  the  Cleveland  Freedman's  Bureau  in 
whatever  efforts  they  might  make  in  the  direction  indicated.  The 
report  of  the  publishing  Agent  showed  that  the  receipts  from  all 
sources  about  equalled  the  expenditures,  and  assets  were  claimed 
in  the  sum  of  $20,912.20,  minus  $2543,  liabilities.  Methodist 
Recorder  list,  tabulated,  3557;  Sabbath- School  Recorder,  about 
six  thousand.  J.  B.  Walker,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Ministerial  Education,  reported  operations  for  the 
year,  and  was  reelected.  About  $1500  was  collected  for  cur- 
rent use,  and  $11,000  for  permanent  fund.  Dr.  John  Kost  re- 
ported for  College  Endowment  Fund  $100,000  as  property  trust, 
and  for  the  nonce  its  trustees  must  be  kept  intact  from  the 
college  trustees.  Reuben  Rose,  Corresponding  Secretary  of 
Board  of  Missions,  reported  for  appropriation  $1132.01,  paid 
out,  $1100.  Tentative  efforts  were  .making  to  establish  Con- 
ferences in  the  South,  one  of  five  hundred  members  reported 
in  North  Carolina.  Rev.  J.  S.  Thrap,  who  had  been  appointed 
Adrian  College  Agent  soon  after  the  rise  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1866,  reported  that  $40,000  had  been  secured  for  en- 
dowment, and  that  in  accordance  with  the  conditions  precedent 
to  the  transfer  of  the  college  to  the  Methodist  Church  the  steps 
had  been  legally  taken  and  the  property  held  for  the  Church. 
The  success  of  the  plan  was  largely  due  to  his  indefatigable 
efforts.  A  change  of  the  location  of  the  Publishing  House  was 
again  mooted  and  referred  to  a  commission.  The  statistics  tabu- 
lated are  as  follows:  itinerants,  624;  unstationed,  etc.,  444; 
members,  49,030;  houses  of  worship,  482;  parsonages,  104;  value 
of  church  property,  $1,145,150.  It  appears  from  Document  P 
that  the  editor  had  had  some  difficulty  as  to  the  "  liberty  of  the 
press,"  and  had  exercised  his  discretion,  which  called  for  a  molli- 
fying deliverance.  The  Diaconate  as  an  order  having  been  abol- 
ished, provision  was  made  for  this  class  up  to  their  ordination 
as  elders.  "The  Minutes  were  read  up  and  adopted,  when  the 
Conference  adjourned  sine  die.'^ 


CHAPTER  XXX 


Decease  and  sketch  of  Rev.  Thomas  H.  Stockton  and  others  —  The  dissevered 
Methodist  Protestants  coming  together ;  steps  in  that  direction ;  fraternity 
with  other  Methodisms  at  the  Maryland  Conference  of  1870  —  Tenth  General 
Conference  of  the  Church  in  Baltimore,  May,  1870 ;  roster  of  members ;  Rev. 
J.  G.  Whitfield,  President;  report  on  the  fraternal  delegations  —  Convention 
on  periodical  and  Book  Concern  —  Virginia  Conference,  secession  resolve  pre- 
sented ;  action  on  it —  Secessions  to  the  Church  South  from  the  Alabama  and 
Mississippi  Conferences;  the  Virginia  case  in  detail;  violent  proceedings  — 
Gift  of  §21,000  by  J.  J.  Amos  of  Indiana  to  Adrian  College — Trouble  in  the 
West  over  the  church  name  "  Methodist  "  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers,  L.  J. 
Cox  and  others  —  Bishop  M'Tyeire  on  surrender  of  power  by  the  preachers 
in  their  lay-delegation;  comments  —  Western  Book  Concern  removed  to 
Pittsburgh. 

Rev.  Thomas  Hewlings  Stockton  deceased  October  8,  1868. 
He  was  bom  at  Mount  Holly,  Burlington  County,  N.  J,,  on  the 
4th  of  June,  1808.  He  received  from  his  father,  William  S. 
Stockton,  and  his  saintly  mother  all  the  advantages  of  education 
their  personal  supervision  and  the  accessible  schools  could  afford. 
He  was  never  a  linguist,  but  became  one  of  the  purest  and  great- 
est of  idiomatic  English  writers  and  speakers.  He  joined  the 
St.  George's  Methodist  Episcopal  church,  Philadelphia,  in  1826, 
made  tentative  efforts  in  the  choice  of  a  calling,  as  compositor, 
medical  student,  and  litterateur.  God  meant  him  for  a  preacher, 
and  so  it  was  decided.  His  associations  and  convictions  made 
him  a  Methodist  Protestant,  and  this  he  remained  until  his  death, 
despite  his  vagaries  of  departure  in  his  unique  notions  of  a 

Society  of  Brotherly  Love."  Both  as  a  writer  and  a  preacher 
he  was  original,  and,  in  his  day,  peerless.  Dr.  Colhouer  aptly 
depicts  him  :  "  He  was  the  prince  of  modern  pulpit  orators.  His 
tall,  majestic  form,  dignified  manner,  pallid  face,  blue  eagle 
eyes,  intellectual  forehead,  with  long,  silvery  hair  at  forty  years 
onward,  expressive  mouth,  sweet,  musical  voice,  his  whole  clas- 
sic appearance  seemed  to  stamp  him  with  almost  angelic  faculties 
and  features ;  and,  when  radiant  with  divine  light  and  love,  he 
entranced  and  thrilled  the  vast  congregations,  to  whom  he  min- 
istered, like  the  mighty  wind  moves  the  waves  of  the  sea."  As 
a  writer,  his  posthumous  remains,  published  and  unpublished, 

500 


THOMAS  H.  STOCKTON. 


# 


T.  n.  STOCKTON  AND  OTHER  WORTHIES  501 


make  a  catalogue  in  which,  as  prose-poet,  word-singer,  dialecti- 
cian, and  rhetorician,  he  had  few  equals  and  no  superiors.  All 
these  elements  combine  in  the  last  of  his  productions,  given  to 
the  public  after  his  death,  1870,  "The  Book  Above  All."  As  a 
Reformer  he  was  unflinching,  and,  while  at  times  personal  consid- 
erations turned  him  awry,  his  convictions  remained  unchanged; 
and,  to  the  last,  he  pronounced  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 
the  very  best  of  denominational  forms.  In  his  sermon  upon  the 
death  of  Dr.  S.  K.  Jennings,  1854,  his  deliverance  is  crystallized 
in  these  words,  true  in  every  syllable :  "  But  originally  Metho- 
dism was  only  spiritual.  Since  then  it  has  become  ecclesiastical. 
Its  spiritual  character  has  always  been  its  glory.  Its  ecclesiasti- 
cal character  has  always  been  its  shame.  From  the  beginning  its 
government  has  been  an  intermitting  volcano,  starting,  at  vari- 
ous intervals,  into  flaming  eruption  and  filling  the  circuit  of  its 
power  with  saddest  devastations.  Alas!  for  all  man's  govern- 
ments! Alas!  for  all  oi?er-government  —  all  unyielding  gov- 
ernment —  all  idolized  government."  His  career  has  been  largely 
traced  in  these  pages  elsewhere,  and  the  notable  events  of  his  life 
are  too  numerous  for  this  casual  mention.  His  lingering  illness 
of  pulmonary  affection,  which  followed  him  through  his  life, 
was  a  triumph  of  redeeming  grace  and  the  eloquence  of  Christian 
victory.  His  funeral  was  from  his  old  church  at  Eleventh  and 
Wood  streets,  Philadelphia,  and  the  sermon  to  the  crowded  con- 
gregation was  by  his  old  friend,  J.  G.  Wilson,  assisted  by  Alexan- 
der Clark  and  J.  W.  Jackson.  He  was  buried  in  Mount  Moriah 
cemetery.  Memoirs  were  written  both  by  Wilson  and  Clark,  and 
Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  291-307,  gives  a  merited  tribute. 

Rev.  Mrs.  Hannah  Reeves  departed  this  life  November  13, 
1868.  She  was  the  wife  of  Rev.  Dr.  William  Reeves,  and  the 
first  of  women  preachers  in  the  new  Church  who  was  honored  as 
having  "a  call  to  preach,"  which  it  could  not  fail  to  recognize. 
She  died  in  peace  at  New  Brighton,  Pa.,  after  a  marriage  union 
of  thirty-seven  years,  a  "  helpmeet "  to  her  husband  in  a  double 
sense.  "The  Lady  Preacher,"  by  Rev.  Dr.  George  Brown,  pub- 
lished in  1870,  records  her  useful  life  and  private  virtues.  Rev. 
Samuel  Roberson,  early  Reformer  of  Georgia,  aged  seventy-nine, 
died  January  6, 1869;  Rev.  Allen  Wallis,  early  Reformer  of  Ten- 
nessee, died  January  30,  1^69.  James  L.  Armstrong,  M.D.,  early 
Reformer  of  Tennessee,  deceased  April  5,  1868,  full  of  grace, 
full  of  glory,  and  in  the  eighty-seventh  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
born  in  Greenbrier  County,  Va.,  April  2,  1782,  and  removed  in 


502 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


his  youth  to  Kentucky,  studied  medicine,  and,  in  1809,  settled 
in  Bedford  County,  Tenn.  Early  converted,  he  united  with  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  served  his  country  as  surgeon  in 
the  War  of  1812,  and  during  the  cholera  scourge  of  1832  stood  to 
his  professional  post.  He  embraced  Reform  principles  from  the 
beginning,  and  was  expelled,  without  trial,  by  Elder  James 
Gwinn  in  April,  1826.  Henceforth  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
new  Church,  was  often  elected  to  the  early  Conventions  and  Gen- 
eral Conferences,  and  as  delegate  to  the  Annual  Conferences.  A 
forcible  writer  and  speaker,  a  wise  counsellor  and  earnest  Chris- 
tian, the  Church  in  the  West  never  had  a  truer  friend. 

Xotwithstanding  the  steps  taken  in  the  North  and  West  and 
those  in  the  South  and  East  at  this  period  seemed  to  widen  the 
breach  between  these  sections,  the  old  Methodist  Protestant 
instinct  and  unity  of  ecclesiastical  principles  were  quietly  work- 
ing, but  need  not  be  diffusively  traced.  The  task  has  been 
impartially  performed  by  Rev.  Dr.  Scott,  in  his  work,  "Fifty 
Years."  As  early  as  January  3,  1866,  as  editor  of  the  Western 
paper,  he  wrote  of  the  Baltimore  paper,  as  the  first  of  his 
exchanges,  "  This  is  natural  enough  because  of  cherished  memo- 
ries and  cherished  hopes,"  the  words  here  italicized  being  so  in 
the  article.  The  correspondence  between  Rev.  Dr.  Daniel  W. 
Bates  and  Rev.  Dr.  William  Collier,  already  referred  to,  ripened 
into  the  appointment  of  fraternal  messengers  from  the  Pittsburgh 
to  the  Maryland  Conference  in  1869.  This  was  cordially  recip- 
rocated by  the  appointment  of  messengers  to  the  ensuing  Pitts- 
burgh Conference.  The  fraternity  was  repeated  at  the  Maryland 
Conference  of  1870,  but  came  near  miscarrying  by  reason  of  a 
misunderstanding  as  to  some  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  breth- 
ren in  the  West  Virginia  Conference,  Pocahontas  County,  who 
had  preferred  a  connection  with  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  and 
which  the  Baltimore  paper  interpreted,  for  lack  of  full  informa- 
tion, as  a  proselyting  scheme  of  the  brethren  West.  This  is  the 
incident  referred  to  early  in  these  pages  as  in  evidence  that  the 
"  Methodist "  brethren  spurned  the  imputation  of  poaching  or  of 
imitating  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  its  inroads  upon 
the  South.  These  reciprocations  were  not  so  favoraVjly  regarded 
in  the  South,  especially  in  North  Carolina,  made  sore  by  the 
recognition  of  the  disaffected  in  that  State  by  the  West.  At  the 
Maryland  Conference  of  1870,  other  messengers  were  present: 
Drs.  Scott  and  Cowl,  Dr.  John  Paris  from  North  Carolina,  and 
from  the  Church  South  in  the  persons  of  Drs.  Rozel  and  Poisel, 


TENTH  GENERAL  CONFEBENCE  OF  1870 


503 


who  were  profuse  in  their  compliments  and  overdid  the  courtesy. 
And,  inasmuch  as  a  few  months  later,  at  the  Tenth  General  Con- 
ference in  Baltimore,  Rev.  Drs.  Eddy  and  Lanahan,  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  and  Eev.  Drs.  Linn,  Huston,  and  Kepler, 
of  the  Church  South,  appeared  with  loving  congratulations  on 
fraternal  grounds,  one  would  have  been  impressed  with  the  idea 
that  the  era  of  good  feeling  was  indeed  inaugurated  by  these 
brethren  of  a  common  Methodism ;  but  some  things  were  subse- 
quently found  in  the  ointment  that  spoiled  the  flavor. 

The  Tenth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  convened  in  East  Baltimore  station,  Baltimore,  on  Fri- 
day, the  sixth  day  of  May,  1870.  Rev.  George  Nestor  was  called 
to  the  Chair,  and  G.  J.  Cherry,  Secretary.  The  roster  is  as 
follows :  — 


Maryland 


Ministers 
L.  W.  Bates 
J.  J.  Murray 
J.  K.  Nichols 


Laymen 
Gaven  Spence 
J.  W.  Hering 
J.  W.  Thompson 
Joseph  Graham 
John  T.  Dodd 
Southey  F.  Miles 
Ormond  Hammond 
R.  S.  Griffith 
John  G.  Clarke 
J.  D.  Cathell 
B.  H.  Richardson 


Augustus  Webster 
S.  B.  Southerland 


J.  T.  Murray 
T.  D.  Valiant 
D.  E.  Reese 
H.  C.  Gushing 


E.  J.  Drinkhouse 


John  Roberts 


West  Virginia 


John  Clarke 
George  Nestor 
J.  G.  Weaver 
G.  W.  Barrett 


C.  W.  Newline 
Samuel  Engle 


Oliver  Lowther 
W.  M.  Betts 


J.  W.  Williamson 
Z.  Kidwell 
J.  A.  Hartley 
Wm.  Vandervort 


North  Carolina 


W.  H.  Wills 
T.  H.  Pegram 
A.  C.  Harris 


G.  J.  Cherry 
J.  W.  Hancock 
P.  A.  Cox 
J.  P.  Speight 
L.  W.  Batchelor 
J.  M.  Adell 
J.  T.  Pickens 


A.  W.  Lineberry 


C.  F.  Harris 
A.  W.  Lowe 
John  Paris 


John  Burdine 


South  Carolina 

Lewis  Yarborough 


504  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Arkansas 

Laymen 
W.  F.  Wallace 

Tennessee 

Wni.  Collins 

Illinois 

Orestes  Ames 

Virginia 

C.  W.  Button 
Wm.  Harding 

HOLSTON 

M.  T.  Peebles 

Alabama 

C.  E.  Crenshaw 
Edmund  Harrison 
J.  D.  Houser 

Texas 

G.  W.  Simmons 

Georgia 

F.  H,  M.  Henderson  J.  B.  McDaniel 

South  Illinois 

E.  C.  G.  Nickens 

Louisiana 

J.  C.  Wallace  Dr.  Herring 

Pennsylvania 
Joseph  Watrous  James  Vancamp 

There  is  no  notation  of  absentees,  if  any.  The  writer  was 
a  member  of  the  Conference,  and  his  recollection  is  that  there 
were  few,  if  any,  absent  of  those  named,  though  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served that  there  is  no  representation  from  Mississippi,  Missouri, 
McCaine  (Texas),  or  Des  Moines.  The  minutes  show  that  Eev. 
William  Trogdon  was  recognized  as  a  representative  from  Ark- 
ansas. He  had  been  elected  by  the  new  North  Arkansas  Confer- 
ence, with  G.  W.  Simmons,  layman,  though  not  in  the  roster  of 
Conferences. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  first  day  J.  G.  Whitfield  was  elected 
President,  J.  G.  Cherry  and  J.  T.  Murray,  Secretaries.  The 
following  are  the  chairmen  of  tlie  standing  committees:  Journals, 


Ministers 
Thomas  Aaron 

J.  W.  Chandler 


W.  W.  Tipton 


J.  G.  Whitfield 
L.  F.  Cosby 


G.  R.  Barr 


A.  J.  Grove 
G.  H.  McFaden 
L.  L.  Hill 


M.  F.  Rosser 


FRATERNAL  MESSENGERS  FROM  ALL  METHODISMS  505 

W.  H.  Wills;  Boundaries,  G.  R.  Barr;  Judiciary,  Augustus 
Webster;  Executive,  L.  W.  Bates;  Literature,  S.  B.  Souther- 
land;  Means  of  Grace,  John  Clarke;  Finance,  B.  H.  Richardson; 
Home  and  Foreign  Missions,  H.  C.  Gushing;  Sabbath-schools, 
E.  J.  Drinkhouse;  Temperance,  G.  H.  McFaden;  Ecclesiastical 
Visitors  and  Communications,  J.  J.  Murray.  On  motion  of 
George  Nestor  the  word  "  Western  "  in  Discipline  was  stricken 
out  and  West  Virginia  substituted.  Much  time  was  consumed 
in  amendments  to  the  Discipline,  few  of  which  were  adopted  (see 
revised  edition).  The  form  for  a  Church  Register  was  submitted 
from  Rev.  B.  F.  Benson,  and  adopted.  The  papers  from  the  fra- 
ternal Commissioners  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  were 
read,  the  gist  of  them  being,  that  they  were  "  appointed  to  treat 
with  a  similar  commission  from  any  other  Methodist  Church 
desirous  of  union  with  us,"  etc.  It  consisted  of  seven  bishops 
and  seven  prominent  brethren.  The  fraternal  messengers  from 
the  "  Methodist "  Church  were ;  George  Brown,  William  Collier, 
and  Alexander  Clark.  They  addressed  the  Conference  by  courtesy 
first,  and  "expressed  the  fraternal  regards  of  the  Church  they 
represented  for  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  their 
earnest  desire  that  the  old  ecclesiastical  union  might  be  restored." 
Then  Drs.  Eddy  and  Lanahan  spoke  for  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  "expressed  brotherly  regard  for  your  Church,  and 
the  hope  that  there  might  be  a  closer  bond  of  union  between  the 
different  parts  of  the  Methodist  family,"  etc.  Later  Drs.  Linn, 
Huston,  and  Kepler,  of  the  Church  South,  fraternal  messengers, 
were  introduced  and  "  bore  the  fraternal  greetings  of  their  Church 
to  the  Conference,"  etc. 

To  all  these  addresses  the  President  made  suitable  replies  at 
the  time,  and,  subsequently,  the  Committee  on  Visitations, 
through  J.  J.  Murray,  reported  responses  in  much  detail.  To 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  suggestions  were  made  for  a 
"closer  union,"  some  of  them  quite  wholesome  and  effective, 
with  a  request  that  they  be  referred  by  that  Church  to  their 
Annual  Conferences.  It  was  not  done,  however,  for  the  re- 
minders were  probably  not  agreeable,  it  may  be  assumed.  To 
the  "  Methodist "  Church  the  gist  of  the  response  is  in  the  reso- 
lution that  "whenever  the  ponferences  aforesaid  shall  see  fit  to 
rescind  their  act  of  suspension  and  place  themselves  again  under 
the  Constitution  and  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  they  will  be  cordially  received  as  colaborers  in  the 
cause  of  Christ  and  constituent  members  of  this  body."    It  was 


506 


mSTOBT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


also  suggested  that  if  they  would  appoint  Commissioners  to 
"consider  the  subject  of  union  between  that  Church  and  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church,"  the  President  of  this  body  is 
authorized  to  reciprocate  such  appointment  of  Commissioners. 
To  the  Church  South  congratulations  are  extended  on  their  intro- 
duction of  a  lay-delegation  into  the  General  Conference,  and  the 
hope  expressed  that  they  will  go  forward  until  the  differences 
are  still  less  pronounced,  etc.  On  final  passage  the  report  was 
agreed  to  except  the  words  "rescind  their  act  of  separation,"  and 
the  provision  for  Commissioners  to  the  "  Methodist "  Church. 

The  question  as  to  whether  the  Conferences  had  ordered  a  Con- 
vention was  a  vexed  one,  and  not  decided  until  near  the  close, 
when  it  was  negatived,  with  an  order  for  the  submission  of  the 
same  question  at  the  ensuing  Conference,  set  for  Lynchburg,  Va., 
May,  1874.  Many  changes  were  made  in  the  form  of  the  Ritual. 
Des  Moines  and  Missouri  Conferences  were  united.  Statistics 
were  referred  for  completion.  Western  Maryland  College  was 
recognized  as  a  general  institution  of  the  Church.  Boundaries 
were  fixed,  and  the  Convention  of  the  Book  Concern  and  Peri- 
odical held  May  11,  Rev.  D.  E.  Reese  in  the  chair  and  H.  C. 
Cushing,  Secretary.  The  report  of  the  Book  Directory  was  sub- 
mitted, with  an  estimated  worth  of  the  Concern,  March  1,  1870, 
^7355.67,  and  a  net  profit  in  four  years  of  $2036.06.  The  circu- 
lation of  the  official  paper  in  March,  1867,  is  given  as  2151,  and 
for  March,  1870,  3185,  an  increase  of  1034  in  the  three  years.  A 
resume  of  the  management  for  the  three  years  is  given,  and  sug- 
gestions made  for  the  future  conduct  of  the  paper  were  carefully 
considered.  On  motion,  at  a  second  session  of  the  Convention, 
the  report  was  adopted,  with  thanks  to  the  Directory  and  the 
brethren  who  rendered  voluntary  service  as  editors,  and  that 
portion  of  it  as  to  the  future  management  of  the  paper  referred 
to  a  special  committee  of  one  from  each  Conference  represented. 
It  was  so  appointed,  and  they  reported  that  it  seemed  expedient 
to  continue  the  service  by  editorial  committee  until  the  Con- 
cern was  in  assured  condition  to  employ  an  editor.  A  paper 
from  the  Virginia  Conference  set  forth  that  they  had  agreed 
with  the  Commissioners  of  the  Church  South  to  accept  corporate 
union  on  the  terms  offered,  and  asked  the  General  Conference  to 
unite  with  them  in  effecting  such  a  union  for  the  whole  Church. 
A  detailed  answer  was  made  from  a  special  committee,  deprecating 
this  action,  and  earnestly  appealing  to  them  not  to  disintegrate 
or  unite  with  another  denomination,  but,  "if  at  their  ensuing 


VIRGINIA  SECESSION  TO  CHURCH,  SOUTH  507 


Conference  they  shall  find  self-preservation  no  longer  possible, 
in  that  event  the  Presidents  of  the  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and 
Maryland  Conferences  are  hereby  authorized  to  distribute  the 
territory,  with  its  ministers,  members,  and  church  property,  in 
their  present  relations,  etc.,  by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Conference."  Fraternal  messengers  were  appointed  to  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  and  the  Methodist  Church.  On  the  twelfth  day.  May  18, 
1870,  the  Conference  adjourned,  with  prayer  by  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates. 

At  the  Maryland  Annual  Conference,  March,  1869,  Rev.  W. 
C.  Lipscomb  was  admitted  to  membership,  to  sustain  the  same 
relation  vacated  by  the  decease  of  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  Waters,  in 
recognition  of  his  Reform  services.  The  privilege  was  afterward 
extended  to  the  remaining  survivors  in  the  unstationed  ranks ;  to 
wit,  the  venerable  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick  and  Amon  Richards, 
of  the  Maryland  District.  Jamestown  Female  College  of  North 
Carolina,  which  had  become  very  much  involved,  was  rescued 
temporarily  from  enforced  sale  by  the  intervention  of  Rev.  Alson 
Gray  and  T.  H.  Pegram  selling  their  farms  to  meet  ^3000  of  the 
$9000  due.  Such  acts  of  heroism  merit  record,  however  futile 
in  the  end.  It  was  afterward  destroyed  by  fire.  Rev.  T.  H. 
Colhouer  issued  a  volume,  twelvemo,  on  "Non-Episcopal  Metho- 
dism," ably  written  and  trenchantly  enforced.  Three  editions  of 
it  were  sold,  and  it  is  still  obtainable. 

The  Virginia  Conference,  at  its  session  of  November,  1869,  had 
passed  decisive  resolutions  on  union  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  already  referred  to.  A  strong  minority  opposed 
and  endeavored  to  have  the  question  referred  to  the  societies 
in  their  primary  assembly;  this  the  majority  voted  down,  but 
agreed  to  submit  it  to  the  Quarterly  Conference  of  the  District, 
with  the  result  that  there  was  a  majority  of  one  against  the  revo- 
lutionary and  destructive  movement.  Bent,  however,  upon  the 
accomplishment  of  their  purpose,  at  the  ensuing  forty-first  ses- 
sion, held  at  Norfolk,  Va.,  November  3,  1870,  Rev.  J.  G.  Whit- 
field was  elected  President,  and,  on  motion,  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  consider  the  proposition  from  the  Church  South, 
Rev.  Dr.  Leroy  M.  Lee  of  that  Church  being  present  to  assist, 
by  his  counsel  and  assurances,  ikie  dismemberment  of  the  Confer- 
ence by  invitation  of  the  malcontents.  The  committee  reported 
favorably  to  disbandment  and  "  union  "  with  the  Church  South. 
The  writer  was  present  as  spectator,  and  also  to  assist,  by  coun- 
sel and  encouragement,  against  the  disruption.    The  debate  was 


508  niSTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFOBM 


able  and  often  eloquent.  The  President  insisted,  in  his  rulings, 
that  the  matter  must  be  referred  to  the  churches,  as  the  issue  had 
been  met  and  defeated  in  the  Quarterly  Conferences;  but  the 
strange  logic  of  desperate  men  was  advanced,  that  the  Quarterly 
Conferences  voting  aflB.rmatively  were  inclusive  of  the  majority  of 
the  members,  the  very  proposition  they  had  submitted  in  1869 
and  now  refused  to  entertain.  Finally,  pressed  to  a  vote,  it  was 
carried  by  fourteen  to  twelve,  three  lay-delegates,  whose  Quar- 
terly Conferences  had  voted  against  dissolution,  disregarding 
their  instructions,  and  voted  to  dissolve  the  Conference.  The 
President  vacated  the  chair,  and  they  adjourned  to  the  basement 
for  final  adjustment  with  the  Agent  of  the  Church  South,  Dr.  Lee; 
the  minority,  as  they  passed  out,  repudiating  such  action  as  revo- 
lutionary and  unconstitutional,  remained  in  their  seats,  elected 
Rev.  L.  F.  Cosby,  President,  and  resumed  business.  It  is  fair  to 
state  that  those  who  retired  were  the  real  itinerants  of  the  Confer- 
ence, and  had  most,  personally,  at  stake.  They  made  terms  for 
themselves,  but  discovered  that  the  Church  to  which  they  had 
gone,  in  the  eastern  section  of  Virginia,  was  as  impoverished  as 
their  own  people,  the  armies  of  the  Civil  War  having  left  it  a  wil- 
derness of  desolation.  The  Virginia  Conference  of  the  Church 
South  was  unable  to  take  care  of  the  work  they  thus  received;  but 
so  complete  was  the  wreck  of  church  interests  that  no  recovery  has 
ever  been  made  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  the  east 
of  Virginia;  a  section  lying  nearest  North  Carolina  was  absorbed 
by  it,  and  the  Holston  Conference,  uniting  with  the  minority  at 
Norfolk  to  perpetuate  the  Virginia  Conference,  took  care  of  the 
western  section.  Maryland  received  Lynchburg,  Heathsville, 
and  Amelia  on  the  Potomac  border.  Dr.  Whitfield  and  Dr.  E,.  B. 
Thomson,  now  aging,  found  a  church  asylum,  the  first  in  the 
North  Carolina  and  the  last  in  the  intact  Virginia  Conference. 
Subsequently,  a  suit  to  recover  the  Hopewell  church  property, 
Virginia,  in  1871,  led  to  judicial  decision  by  Judge  Wingfield, 
that  those  who  adhered  at  the  Norfolk  Conference  (and  those  who 
adhered  in  any  divided  society,  as  well)  were  the  "Virginia  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  ^  The  dissolution 
was  heralded,  however,  as  legal  and  complete,  in  the  Richmond 

1  About  this  time,  or  not  lonpj  .after,  a  case  in  Noble  County,  O.,  was  decided 
by  the  resident  judge,  the  Metliodist  Protestants  enterinsj  suit  to  recover  a  church 
from  the  "  Methodist  "  brethren,  after  reviewing  all  the  evidence,  that  the  possess- 
ing parties  were  the  "  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  Thus,  as  to  this  question, 
the  one  thing  made  clear  is  that  there  are  judicial  decisions  and  judicial  decisions. 
Neither  of  these  cases  was  appealed. 


SECESSIONS  IN  ALABAMA  AND  MISSISSIPPI  509 


Christian  Advocate  by  Dr.  Lee  and  those  who  had  left;  a  paper 
by  Hon.  Charles  W.  Button,  refuting  the  allegations,  was  re- 
fused publication  in  it,  but  may  be  found  in  the  official  organ 
of  Baltimore.  The  Preachers'  Aid  Society  Fund  of  the  Confer- 
ence, held  by  Dr.  Whitfield  as  Treasurer,  on  demand  was  sur- 
rendered to  Rev.  Dr.  Barr,  and  is  now  in  possession  of  the 
Virginia  Conference,  which,  though  greatly  decimated  of  its  old, 
able  leadership,  has  not  ceased  to  meet  in  annual  session,  and  is 
gradually  growing.  The  whole  transaction  is  the  saddest  and 
most  disastrous  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 

Within  a  year  six  ministers  of  the  Alabama  Conference  with- 
drew and  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  in 
some  cases  carrying  societies  with  them.  The  same  occurred  in 
the  Mississippi  Conference,  the  leading  men  making  terms  for 
themselves  and  carrying  off  societies.  In  some  other  places  there 
were  isolated  withdrawals,  the  Church  South  now  taking  all  who 
offered;  losing  sight,  apparently,  of  their  expressed  determination 
not  to  assist  in  a  disintegration,  but  now  chagrined,  it  may  be, 
over  the  failure  to  capture  the  Church  denominationally.  Those 
who  retired  found  themselves  lost  in  the  Conferences  to  which 
they  had  gone,  and  nothing  came  of  another  "  union  "  scheme  but 
disunion  and  disorder.  Too  much  praise  cannot  be  accorded 
those  who  adhered  through  all  the  enticements,  and  who  have 
struggled  heroically  against  wind  and  tide  to  maintain  organiza- 
tion. There  must  have  been  not  a  little  of  intrinsic  worth  and 
alluring  power  in  the  principles  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  to  conserve  it  in  these  circumstances.  The  membership 
generally,  except  under  menace  of  being  left  without  pastoral 
supply,  adhered  to  the  Church;  but  great  damage  was  wrought, 
and  it  has  taken  long  years  of  struggling  effort  to  recover,  even 
partially,  in  these  States  as  well  as  in  Virginia,  from  the  illu- 
sive union  scheme. 

In  December,  1869,  J.  J.  Amos,  a  liberal  and  loyal  lay-brother 
of  the  Indiana  district,  deeply  interested  in  education  in  the 
Church,  donated  to  Adrian  College  $21,000  for  endowment.  He 
was  not  a  wealthy  man,  and  offered  this  example  of  gift  by  sac- 
rifice. The  Muskingum  Conference  inaugurated  fraternal  inter- 
course with  the  Maryland  Conference  early  in  1870.  The  North 
Arkansas  Conference  was  organized  out  of  the  Arkansas,  Novem- 
ber, 1869.^    Paris's  "Manual,"  a  compend  of  Methodist  Protes- 

1  The  division  of  the  Arkansas  Conference  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1869 ; 
and  the  new  North  Arkansas  Conference  met  December  29,  18G9,  and  elected 


610 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


tant  history  and  polity,  was  reissued  and  enlarged  from  the 
edition  of  1859,  and  was  a  timely  stimulus  to  fidelity  in  these  days 
of  blatant  union.  It  is  now  out  of  print.  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Mur- 
ray, and  his  brother  J.  T.  Murray,  conducted  the  official  paper 
of  Baltimore,  editorially,  in  1870,  with  the  faithful  T.  W.  Ewing 
as  publisher  and  Agent  j  and  nothing  was  left  undone  by  these 
brethren  to  render  its  pages  attractive  and  to  increase  the  circu- 
lation.   Volume  37,  No.  1,  began  with  July  9,  1870. 

In  the  West  the  gravity  of  the  situation  as  to  the  Methodist" 
Church  confronted  the  brethren.  The  old  name  was  graven  in 
stone  on  tablets  facing  nearly  all  the  church  property  and  in  all 
the  deeds.  It  was  not  found  an  easy  legality  to  change  the  name 
in  the  chartered  funds  and  institutions;  the  reason  for  making 
it  and,  much  more,  for  retaining  it,  had  passed  away;  Dr. 
Brown  and  Dr.  Collier,  in  the  Methodist  Recorder,  advocated  a 
return  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  name,  in  June,  1870,  and 
others  united  in  discussing  the  proposal.  About  this  time  the 
Jamestown  College  in  North  Carolina  had  met  with  its  crowning 
disaster  of  destruction  by  fire,  in  the  autumn  of  1870.  Yadkin 
Institute  was  also  discontinued.  The  financial  pressure  in  the 
South,  superinduced,  in  part,  by  the  reconstructive  legislation  of 
Congress,  crippled  every  enterprise.  Dr.  John  Scott,  for  private 
reasons,  resigned  the  editorship  of  the  Methodist  Recorder,  and 
was  succeeded,  in  October,  1870,  by  Bev.  Alexander  Clark.  He 
brought  to  the  position  youth,  energy,  and  gifts  of  a  high  order. 
He  placed  himself  in  touch  not  only  with  the  subscribers,  but,  by 
his  facile  pen  and  genial  manners,  secured  personal  following  in 
other  churches,  much  to  the  advantage  of  the  paper  in  popularity 
and  increased  circulation. 

George  W.  Haller,  early  Reformer  of  Maryland,  deceased  Sep- 
tember, 1869,  aged  seventy-six.  It  was  at  his  home  in  George- 
town, S.  C,  that  Lorenzo  Dow  found  hospitality  and  a  dying  bed, 
in  1833.  Rev.  William  Haisten,  early  Reformer  of  Georgia, 
deceased  January,  1870.  Rev.  Abraham  Woolston,  born  in  New 
Jersey,  November  9,  1791,  became  a  Reformer  in  1828,  labored 

J.  Sexton,  President,  and  T.  Leach,  Secretary.  The  ministers  were,  J.  Sexton, 
William  Trogdon,  T.  Leach,  J.  E.  Carnette,  W.  G.  Teague,  W.  B.  AVilson,  D.  C. 
Mason,  T.  M.  Hallifield,  A.  D.  Evans,  C.  L.  Manus,  G.  Droak.  Preachers,  J.  P. 
Boyd,  J.  Chapman,  S.  F.  Kuykendall.  Delegates,  W.  B.  King,  J.  Elms,  J.  G.  A. 
Bates,  E.  Shackelford,  G.  Turney,  W.  B.  Whitaker,  G.  W.  Simmons,  R.  White. 
The  new  district  comprised  882  members,  10  circuits  and  missions.  William 
Trogdon  and  G.  W.  Simmons  were  elected  representatives  to  the  ensuing  General 
Conference. 


NECROLOGY  OF  EARLY  REFORMERS 


511 


faithfully  for  Christ  and  the  cause  of  Eeform  in  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Missouri,  and  departed  this  life 
in  Eay  County,  February  8,  1870,  full  of  years  and  honored  by 
his  brethren.  Kev.  Thomas  Sim,  M.D.,  unstationed  minister  of 
Maryland  and  early  Keformer,  died  April  20,  1870.  He  was  a 
man  of  mark  both  as  physician  and  churchman.  Eev.  Luther  J. 
Cox,  early  Reformer  and  one  of  the  Expelled  of  Baltimore  in 
1827,  deceased,  obituary  July  30,  1870.  He  was  born  in  Queen 
Anne  County,  Md.,  on  December  27,  1791.  Converted  in  1807, 
he  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church;  was  licensed 
to  preach  in  1819,  and  labored  successfully  in  the  local  ranks 
until  expelled  in  1827.  He  was  a  pillar  in  the  new  Church,  and 
did  much,  by  his  counsel  and  means,  to  establish  it.  Successful 
in  business,  venturesome,  and  ardent  in  temperament,  fortunes 
were  made  and  faded  away,  but  nothing  deterred  him  in  his  devo- 
tion to  the  Church  of  his  choice ;  the  Hampden  church  and  con- 
gregation are  in  evidence  of  his  almost  single-handed  endeavor 
to  crown  his  closing  days  with  this  last  achievement.  He  was 
made  a  supernumerary  member  of  the  Maryland  Conference  in 

1869.  He  was  forcible  as  a  writer  and  had  gifts  as  a  poet  of  no 
low  order.  He  is  the  author  of  the  hymn  preserved  in  the  Church 
Hymnal :  — 

"An  alien  from  God  and  a  stranger  to  grace," 

which  was,  years  afterward,  published  in  an  English  paper  and 
ascribed  to  a  distinguished  poet  of  Great  Britain.  It  has  been 
garbled  and  mis-ascribed  often,  but  stands  now  properly  credited, 
with  other  hymns  of  his  composing.  In  June,  1870,  almost  at 
the  close  of  life,  he  wrote  the  poem :  — 

"  O  precious  book  !  O  book  divine  !  " 

of  no  inferior  merit.  He  died  of  cancer  of  the  stomach  —  his 
end  peaceful  and  happy  —  on  the  26th  of  July,  1870.  The 
funeral  services  were  held  by  Eev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray  and  others, 
and  his  remains  deposited  in  Greenmount  cemetery,  Baltimore. 
Daniel  H,  Home,  born  November  26,  1788,  deceased  March  27, 

1870.  He  was  one  of  the  original  members  in  Cincinnati,  and 
contributed  liberally  of  his  means  to  the  cause  of  Eeform  a  sum 
aggregating  $10,000,  though  not  a  wealthy  man.  Eev.  James  S. 
Ferguson  of  the  Pennsylvania-Philadelphia  Conference,  early 
Eef ormer,  died  October  1,  1870,  aged  ninety  years ;  John  Webb, 
early  Eeformer,  layman  of  Georgia,  aged  seventy-seven,  October 


512 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


29,  1870,  honored  and  loved;  Kev.  Oswald  Potts,  pioneer  and 
Reformer  of  West  Tennessee  Conference,  aged  seventy-seven, 
December  17,  1870;  Rev.  George  Redding,  early  Reformer  of 
Illinois,  aged  seventy-eight,  February  4,  1871. 

Rev.  William  Reeves,  D.D.,  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference, 
departed  this  life  April  20,  1871.  He  was  born,  December  5, 
1802,  at  Stapleshurst,  England,  of  poor  but  pious  parents,  so 
that  his  early  education  was  limited.  Converted  at  twenty-three 
years  of  age,  he  applied  at  once  to  the  Missionary  College  to  pre- 
pare for  that  work  in  India,  but  the  plan  failed.  He  turned  his 
face  to  America,  where  he  arrived  in  1829,  and  came  into  associa- 
tion with  the  Reform  Methodists  of  the  day.  He  united,  accord- 
ingly, with  the  first  Conference  of  the  Ohio  District,  in  1829, 
where  he  labored  until  1833,  and  was  then  set  off  with  the 
new  Pittsburgh  Conference.  Intellectual,  xDhilosophical,  a  good 
theologian,  his  forte  was  as  a  revivalist,  and  he  had  great  success. 
He  held  the  confidence  of  his  brethren  and  was  frequently  a  mem- 
ber of  the  early  Conventions,  General  Conferences,  and  President 
of  his  Annual  Conference.  He  married  Miss  Hannah  Pearce, 
the  first  of  women  preachers  in  the  Church,  though  of  English 
birth  and  education,  in  1831.  She  departed  this  life  November 
13,  1868.  Brother  Reeves  contracted  a  second  marriage,  but  soon 
thereafter  was  afflicted  with  rheumatism  and  neuralgia,  and  suc- 
cumbed to  the  disease.  He  was  buried  at  New  Brighton,  Pa., 
beside  his  first  wife.  A  memorial  service  was  held  by  the  Pitts- 
burgh Conference,  September,  1871,  the  venerable  Dr.  George 
Brown  delivering  the  sermon.  "  He  was  a  great  and  good  man 
—  a  worthy  compeer  in  the  great  work  of  Reform."  Rev.  Wil- 
liam H.  Collins,  aged  seventy -five,  early  Reformer  of  the  Illinois 
Conference,  died  May  6,  1871.  He  was  active  and  useful,  and  his 
memory  is  blessed.  John  Duke  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Va.,  but  in 
the  ^Maryland  District,  aged  ninety  years,  an  early  Reformer  and 
stanch  friend  of  its  supporters,  died  May  13,  1871;  Rev.  George 
Smith,  born  in  Connecticut,  in  1795,  converted  at  fourteen, 
licensed  to  preach  at  twenty,  a  Reformer  from  1830,  as  preacher, 
teacher,  and  President,  he  was  devoted,  and  died  in  peace  at 
North  Hebron,  X.  Y.,  June  13,  1871;  G.  J.  Cherry  of  North 
Carolina,  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  General  Conference  of 
1870  and  a  previous  one,  a  leading  layman  of  his  Conference, 
died  May  27,  1871. 

The  lay-delegation  scheme  of  the  Church  South  was  adopted 
by  the  two-thirds  vote  of  the  Annual  Conferences  and  formally 


LAY-DELEGATION  AND  BISHOP  M'TYEIBE  613 


introduced  at  the  General  Conference  of  that  Church  in  1870. 
Bishop  M'Tyeire  says  of  it:  "So  ripe  was  public  opinion,  and  so 
propitious  the  times,  and  so  well  digested  the  scheme,  that  this 
great  change  was  introduced  without  heat  or  partisanship.  Un- 
stintedly, voluntarily,  on  their  own  motion,  the  ministry,  who 
had  held  this  power  from  the  beginning,  divided  it  equally  with 
the  brethren.  Their  appearance  in  the  chief  council  of  the 
Church,  and  their  influence,  justified  their  introduction,  even  to 
those  who  had  feared;  a  new  power  was  developed,  a  new  interest 
awakened,  a  new  progress  begun.'' ^  The  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  had  been  teaching  all  this  for  forty  years  —  an  object- 
lesson  always  before  them,  had  they  heeded  its  instructions.  The 
good  bishop  lays  great  stress  upon  the  voluntary  surrender  of 
power  by  the  ministers.  It  is  true  that  the  Church  South,  after 
looking  askance  at  the  bugaboo  for  half  a  century,  marched  up  to 
it,  only  to  find,  to  their  surprise  be  it  said,  that  it  was  a  friend, 
if  it  did  not  wear  a  white  cravat  and  a  shad-bellied  coat.  It  was 
more  of  an  impromptu  affair  than  in  the  Church  North;  but  to 
this  day  what  was  conceded  is,  indeed,  a  lay-delegation,  and  in 
no  proper  sense  a  lay-representation,  inasmuch  as  the  machinery 
of  the  election  of  the  laymen  in  the  official  bodies  of  the  churches 
is  such  as  to  be  always  under  the  influential  control  of  the  minis- 
ters, if  politic  to  exercise  it.  The  mild  boasting  of  the  generous 
divide  "  equally  with  the  lay -brethren  "  is  rebuked  in  the  light 
of  the  axiomatic  truth  of  Bishop  Hooker  and  Dr.  Barrow  in  the 
citations  upon  the  title-page  of  the  first  volume  of  this  work.  It 
was  a  movement,  however,  in  the  right  direction,  and  they  are 
to  be  congratulated  on  the  illumination. 

The  Arkansas  and  the  Louisiana  Conferences  were  united  in 
the  autumn  of  1871.  It  was  the  second  change  in  its  original 
boundary,  afterward  so  frequently  made  by  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions for  a  series  of  years,  with  a  final  reunion ;  but  it  would 
not  make  edifying  reading  to  follow  them  closely  as  of  purely 
local  moment.  Rev.  J.  T.  Murray,  pastor  of  East  Baltimore 
station,  was  elected  editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  by  the  Book 
Directory,  in  the  spring  of  1871,  and  was  continued  for  one  year 
as  a  hopeful  experiment  that  the  paper  would  become  self- 
supporting;  if  it  proved  unsuccessful  as  a  venture,  it  was  not 
for  want  of  any  literary  or  executive  ability  on  his  part.  After 
the  first  flush  of  the  zealous  reception  of  the  secedent  ministers 

1  **  History  of  Methodism,"  p.  669. 

VOL.  II — 2  L 


514 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


and  churches  in  the  South  had  expired  in  cold,  practical  work,  it 
was  discovered  that  the  Church  South  could  not  man  the  work 
it  had  received,  so  that  much  of  it  lay  open  to  gradual  disinte- 
gration as  congregations,  or  was  recovered  by  the  faithful  men 
who  tried  to  rebuild  the  fallen  walls  of  the  Church  in  that  sec- 
tion. The  ill-starred  movement  only  impoverished  the  Keform 
cause  still  more,  without  enriching  it  to  any  appreciable  de- 
gree. The  Book  Concern  and  periodical  of  the  "Methodist 
Church"  was  removed  from  Springfield,  to  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  in 
October,  1871,  by  General  Conference  action.  A  generous  offer 
was  made  the  Publishing  House  by  the  trustees  of  the  First 
church,  by  which  they  came  into  possession  and  occupancy  of  the 
large  parsonage  property  adjoining  the  church  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
which  was  transfigured  into  a  store  and  printing  establishment 
in  this  commanding  location.  This  and  the  facilities  for  mail- 
ing and  other  considerations  decided  the  change.  Revs.  T.  H. 
Colhouer  and  E.  R.  McGregor  were  sent  as  fraternal  delegates 
from  the  Pittsburgh  to  the  Maryland  Conference  at  its  March 
session,  1871,  and  the  Conference,  through  a  committee,  resolved, 
in  part,  as  to  this  visitation:  "Conscientiously  differing  in  some 
points  of  church  polity,  which  have  broken  our  ecclesiastical 
unity,  we  patiently  bide  the  time  when,  in  the  providence  of 
God,  we  can  see  eye  to  eye;  and  that  unity  may  be  restored 
without  the  sacrifice  of  principle  or  prejudicing  the  interests 
of  either  organization."    Messengers  were  appointed  in  return. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church,  May,  1871;  roster  of  members; 
Hon.  F.  H.  Pierpont,  President;  fraternal  messengers  from  Maryland;  Revs. 
J.  T.  Murray  and  McCormick  suggested  Union  with  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church;  five  messengers  appointed  to  reciprocate;  statistics;  Adrian  College 
report  by  J.  S.  Thrap  very  favorable ;  Book  Concern  and  periodical  in  good 
condition ;  fraternal  delegates  made  a  commission  on  Union,  etc.  —  Decease 
and  sketch  of  Rev.  Dr.  George  Brown  —  Virginia  Conference  met  at  Norfolk, 
Va.,  November,  1871,  in  refutation  of  the  allegations  that  it  had  been  "dis- 
solved"—  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray  as  fraternal  messenger  to  the  General  Conference 
of  the  M.  E.  Church ;  what  he  said,  and  what  they  did;  curious  denominational 
reserve,  but  characteristic  —  First  Foreign  Missionary  Society  by  the  Women 
of  the  Church  in  Baltimore  in  1872  — The  Central  Protestant  in  North  Carolina, 
under  Rev.  J.  L.  Michaux  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers  —  General  Conference  at 
Lynchburg,  Va.,  May,  1874;  roster  of  members;  Rev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  Presi- 
dent; the  diaconate  abolished;  call  of  a  Convention  for  Abingdon,  Va.,  for 
May,  1878;  reconstruction  of  the  Book  Concern;  none  of  the  Commissioners 
of  the  "Methodist"  Church  appeared  officially;  reasons  for  it  —  A  perilous 
period  to  the  Church;  fidelity  of  the  ministry  to  the  cause;  examples;  their 
moral  heroism ;  elaboration  of  the  idea  as  an  encouragement  to-day. 

"  Minutes  of  the  Second  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Church  (formerly  Methodist  Protestant),  held  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa., 
May  17-27,  1871."  This  is  the  title-page  of  the  twelvemo,  80 
pp.,  pamphlet  containing  the  minutes.  Its  assembly  at  Adrian, 
Mich.,  had  defaulted  on  a  difference  of  opinion.  Francis  A. 
Pierpont  was  called  to  the  chair  and  H.  B.  Knight,  Secretary. 
The  following  is  the  roster  of  members :  — 


New  York 


Ministers 
J.  J.  Smith 
J.  H.  Kobinson 


Laymen 
Lewis  Johnson  i 
Calvin  Tomkinsi 


* 


Onondaga 


Hosea  Ure 
N.  R.  Swift 


Daniel  Eddy 
Peter  Weaver 


Genesee 


E.  A.  Wheat 


Alexander  Gary 


New  Jersey 


E.  D.  Stultz 


J.  M.  Brown  1 


1  Absent. 
515 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
W.  M.  Kerr 


North  Carolina 


Laymen 
W.  A.  McCaUi 


Pennsylvania 


Benjamin  R.  Smith 


George  Brown 
William  Collier 
John  Scott 
Alexander  Clark 
Peter  T.  Laishley 
Horace  B.  Knight 

John  Burns 
William  Hastings 
E.  S.  Hoagland 
Cornelius  Springer 
Joel  S.  Thrap 
J.  C.  Ogle 
Joseph  H.  Hamilton 


W.  R.  Parsons 
Thomas  B.  Graham 
Jonathan  M.  Flood 
S.  B.  Smith 
Martin  B.  V.  Euans 


Asa  Mahan 
William  H.  Bakewell 


PITT9BURGH 


Muskingum 


Ohio 


Michigan 


S.  Bloesi 


F.  H.  Pierpont 

F.  H.  Collier 

G.  W.  Pogue 
Thomas  F.  Scott 
Benson  Fordyce 
William  Rinehart 


Joseph  Wells 
Lewis  Browning 
William  Deford 
Heni-y  Cassell 
Samuel  Moore 
J.  B.  Hamilton 
H.  E.  H.  Hartsock 


Thompson  Douglas 
James  M.  Johnson 
Thomas  J.  Finch 
H.  C.  Hamilton 
J.  C.  Murphy 


Chester  Cooley  i 
Harmon  Oweni 


John  Kost 


S.  M.  Lowden 
H.  Stackhouse 


J.  H  Luse 
R.  Husseyi 


W.  H.  Jordan 
Cornelius  Gray 


Western  Michigan 

E.  Williams 


Indiana 


A.  D.  Amos 
Joseph  Hall 


North  Indiana 


E.  Halli 

A.  D.  ^^^litford 


North  Illinois 


J.  R.  Mulvane 
Richard  Mount 


1  Absent. 


METHODIST  CHURCH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  1871  517 


South  Illinois 


Ministers 
S.  M.  Gentry 
W.  M.  P.  Quinn 

William  Remsburgh 
W.  Huddleston 
A.  S.  Elliott 


Iowa 


Laymen 
C.  Link 
George  Stout 

John  M.  Murphy- 
David  Patterson  ^ 
J.  Bartholomew 


North  Iowa 

William  Purvis  (deceased)  T.  B.  Carpenter 


John  M.  Young  ^ 
Samuel  Young  i 


Nebraska 


Kansas 


Alanson  Jones  ^ 


F.  W.  Johnson! 


Missouri 

William  McFarland  R.  Calvert 

A.  W.  Motz  J.  W.  Bush 


North  Missouri 


R.  A.  Bathurst 


Robert  White  i 


Tennessee  and  North  Georgia 
William  J.  Witcheri  A.  S.  Viningi 

Hon.  Francis  H.  Pierpont  was  elected  President,  H.  B.  Knight 
and  J.  R.  Mulvane,  Secretaries.  The  salient  business  was  as  fol- 
lows :  A  resolution  by  J.  H.  Hamilton  was  referred,  "  That  the 
committee  on  legislation  be  instructed  to  inquire  whether  the 
change  of  name  from  Methodist  Protestant  to  that  of  Methodist 
Church  does  not  require  a  more  particular  statement  of  the  steps 
taken  to  bring  about  that  change,  with  the  view  of  more  fully- 
assisting  in  litigation  in  regard  to  church  property."  The  frater- 
nal messengers  from  the  Maryland  Conference,  Kev.  J.  T.  Murray 
and  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  were  heard,  with,  responses  by 
Rev.  Cornelius  Springer  and  Rev.  A.  H.  Bassett;  and  the  mes- 
sengers from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Rev.  J.  G.  Bruce 
and  Rev.  S.  M.  Merrill,  responded  to  by  George  Brown  and  Wil- 
liam Collier.  Five  fraternal  messengers  were  appointed  to  the 
ensuing  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church. 
The  removal  of  the  Book  Concern  from  Springfield  to  Pittsburgh, 


1  Absent. 


518 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Pa.,  consumed  much,  of  the  Conference  time,  but  was  finally 
determined  in  favor  of  the  change,  "say  by  October  15,  1871.'' 
The  new  hymn  book  was  accepted,  with  modifications.  The 
report  of  the  committee  on  ordination  of  women  was  received, 
and  with  it  a  minority  report  by  J.  J.  Smith.  It  was  several 
times  discussed,  and,  finally,  on  a  motion  to  adopt  the  minority 
report,  which  was  against  the  ordination  of  women,  it  was  car- 
ried by  a  vote  of  forty-six  to  seventeen.  The  next  day  "  sister 
Bradford  "  was  allowed  to  address  the  Conference  on  the  ordina- 
tion of  women,  stating  her  experience.  The  following  motion 
was  offered,  but  not  passed,  "  That  each  Annual  Conference  shall 
have  power  to  authorize  females  to  preach  the  gospel  in  the 
Methodist  Church."  The  report  on  the  Book  Concern  showed 
assets,  $23,000,  liabilities,  $700.  The  subscription  list  of  the 
3fethodist  Recorder  was  4004,  including  free  and  exchange  papers. 
It  was  an  increase  of  1047  in  four  years.  Alexander  Clark  was 
reelected  editor  by  a  practically  unanimous  vote.  On  the  second 
ballot  A.  H.  Bassett  was  reelected  Book  Agent.  F.  H.  Pier- 
pont,  George  Brown,  and  H.  B.  Knight  were  made  a  committee 
"  to  inquire  and  report  on  what  further  legislation,  if  any,  is  nec- 
essary for  securing  our  church  property,  and,  if  any,  procure  the 
same."  The  report  of  J.  S.  Thrap,  agent  of  Adrian  College, 
showed,  as  an  exhibit  for  the  past  four  years  and  five  months : 
College  ground,  buildings,  and  other  appurtenances,  $150,000; 
lands  transferred  to  us  with  the  college,  $2000;  notes  for  pay- 
ment of  debts,  $10,540;  other  promises,  $3000;  interest  now 
due,  $11,000;  endowment  invested  and  collectible,  $100,000; 
total,  $276,510.  Debts  unprovided  for,  $14,017.04.  The  Board 
of  Missions  reported  for  the  quadrennium,  receipts,  $5554.64,  ex- 
penditures, ^c>oo%.Q>o.  C.  H.Williams  was  elected  Corresponding 
Secretary.  The  Board  of  Ministerial  Education  reported  that 
thirty-three  students  had  been  under  its  care  in  the  four  years, 
fifteen  of  these  had  joined  their  Conferences.  Receipts  for  the 
same  period  were  $21,690.82;  expenditures,  $19,009.23.  J.  B. 
Walker  was  reelected  Corresponding  Secretary.  The  committee 
on  Methodistic  Union  reported  in  part:  "In  the  love  of  the 
Saviour,  and  by  the  precious  memories  of  those  honored  servants 
of  God,  who  were  the  founders  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  we  invite  our  brethren  to  meet  us  in  an  effort  to  effect 
union  of  the  two  churches.  We  recommend  that  the  fraternal 
delegates  appointed  by  the  General  Conference  be  constituted  a 
Commission  to  receive  any  propositions  looking  toward  union 


STATISTICS  OF  METHODIST  CHURCH  FOR  1871  519 


that  may  be  made  by  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  and  report  the  same  to  the  next  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Church.  We  also  hope  that  the  litera- 
ture of  both  churches  will  be  freely  interchanged."  The  statistics 
were:  itinerants,  766;  unstationed  ministers  and  preachers,  432; 
members,  52,000;  probationers,  1796;  churches,  569^;  parson- 
ages, 143;  value  of  church  property,  $1,609,425.  In  North  Caro- 
lina, 50  itinerants,  1731  members,  13  churches,  with  value  of 
f 1600  were  claimed,  and  are  included  in  the  totals  given,  but  no 
reliance  can  be  placed  upon  the  representations;  and  a  critical 
examination  of  the  figures  upon  their  face  shows  a  misstatement 
and  exaggeration  as  to  North  Carolina.  Princeton,  111.,  was  fixed 
as  the  place  for  the  next  General  Conference.  A  brief  address 
from  the  President,  and  the  Conference  adjourned. 

South  Hall  of  Adrian  College  was  destroyed  by  fire  early  in 
1869,  but  was  rebuilt  at  a  cost  of  $13,000.  The  last  issue  of  the 
Methodist  Recorder  at  Springfield,  0.,  bears  date  October  25,  1871. 
The  plant  was  then  removed  to  Pittsburgh  in  hired  apartments. 
The  publisher,  A.  H.  Bassett,  was  prostrated  with  disease,  and 
the  editor,  Alexander  Clark,  failed  in  health,  leading  to  a  pro- 
tracted absence  in  California  of  some  months.  In  February, 
1872,  the  publisher  resigned,  and  was  succeeded,  the  ensuing 
July,  by  James  Eobison.  About  May,  1873,  the  Board  of  Pub- 
lication came  into  possession  of  the  old  parsonage  of  the  First 
church,  and  established  the  paper  and  Concern  in  it,  to  enter 
upon  a  course  of  reasonable  prosperity,  the  subscription  list  of 
the  paper  running  up  to  the  highest  figures  it  ever  reached  under 
the  popular  and  versatile  editor. 

And  now  came  a  shock  to  the  West  and  the  whole  Church.  Dr. 
George  Brown  departed  this  life  October  26,  1871,  in  the  fifty- 
sixth  year  of  his  ministry  and  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age. 
He  was  born  in  Washington  County,  Pa.,  January  29,  1792,  his 
parents  having  first  settled  at  Pipe  Creek,  Md.,  and  were  mem- 
bers of  the  first  class  formed  in  America  by  Kev.  Robert  Straw- 
bridge,  not  later  than  1762.^  In  1800  his  parents  removed  to 
Ohio,  and  built  a  cabin  on  Cedar-Lick-Run,  now  in  Jefferson 
County.    His  educational  advantages  were  limited,  but,  by  unre- 

1  Not  only  is  this  date  in  evidence,  but  there  is  collateral  proof  that  within  a 
year  after,  or  in  1763,  Strawbridge  had  organized  a  work  on  what  is  known  as 
Patapsco  circuit  of  the  Baltimore  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  and  regular 
Methodist  preaching  can  be  traced  from  that  year.  In  the  old  Patapsco  church 
the  one  hundred  and  thirty-fifth  anniversary  was  celebrated  in  the  autumn  of 
1898,  under  the  present  pastor,  Rev.  W.  F.  Roberts. 


520 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


mitting  application,  he  gained  knowledge  enough  to  teach  school 
in  1811.  In  1812  he  enlisted,  and  rose  to  orderly  sergeant  in  the 
American  army.  August  21,  1813,  at  a  camp-meeting  near  Bal- 
timore, Md.,  under  the  preaching  of  Snethen,  Shinn,  and  Mc- 
Caine,  he  was  converted,  and  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  the  twenty-first  year  of  his  age.  Joining  the  Balti- 
more Conference  in  1815,  he  labored  until  1823,  when  he  was 
appointed  Presiding  Elder  on  the  Monongahela  District.  In 
1826,  while  stationed  at  Steubenville,  0.,  he  heard  the  first  dis- 
cussion on  church  Tjolity,  between  the  Elder  Swazie  and  Dr. 
David  Stanton,  father  of  War  Secretary  Stanton,  whose  mother 
belonged  to  the  old  Church  at  the  time.  On  the  3d  of  June, 
1828,  having  lingered  for  a  season,  he  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
Reformers,  leaving  preferment  and  a  good  support  for  the  labors 
and  sacrifices  of  a  new  Church.  The  motives  of  such  men  cannot 
be  impugned.  His  controversy  with  Bishop  Hedding,  which  he 
has  traversed  in  his  "  Recollections  of  Fifty  Years  in  the  Itiner- 
ancy," in  vindication  of  his  actions  and  his  memory,  led  to  much 
slanderous  abuse,  as  already  exposed  in  these  pages.  In  1829  he 
assisted  in  the  organization  of  the  Ohio  Conference,  a  member  of 
the  Convention  of  1830,  and  of  numerous  Conventions  and  Gen- 
eral Conferences  thereafter,  as  stated  in  current  connections,  fill- 
ing all  the  responsible  positions  of  the  Church,  College  President, 
Editor,  and  voluminous  writer  for  the  press,  and  to  the  last 
maintained  a  phenomenal  activity,  as  late  as  1869  travelling  seven 
thousand  miles,  and  preaching  eighty-five  times  in  his  seventy- 
seventh  year.  Blessed  with  splendid  health,  he  never  missed  his 
Conference  from  1815  to  1871.  Physically,  he  was  of  large  stat- 
ure, well  developed,  of  robust  frame  and  iron  constitution.  Men- 
tally, he  was  largely  endowed,  a  fine  debater,  an  entertaining 
conversationist,  of  pure  life  and  unspotted  reputation  built  upon 
a  character  of  great  symmetry  and  beauty.  The  life  of  every 
company,  witful  and  genial,  he  was  loved  by  old  and  young.  His 
attainments  were  considerable,  a  preacher  of  power,  and  even  for 
the  years  after  a  nervous  affection  gave  to  his  speech  a  staccato 
utterance,  he  seemed  all  the  more  interesting  as  talker  or  de- 
claimer.  At  last  the  remarkable  vital  powers  failed,  though 
conscious  to  the  end.  He  said  to  Rev.  A.  H.  Bassett:  "What  a 
blunder  it  would  have  been,  if  I  had  come  to  this  hour  without 
securing  the  comforts  of  religion.  But  I  have  unshaken  faith  in 
God!  I  know  whom  I  have  believed."  His  funeral,  at  Spring- 
field, was  largely  attended,  twenty-six  ministers  of  the  various 


REV.  DR.  GEORGE  BROWN  DECEASED  521 


denominations,  with  the  venerable  Bishop  Morris,  one  of  his 
close  personal  friends,  adding  their  presence  in  respect  to  his 
memory.  He  was  buried  in  the  town  cemetery,  and  a  suitable 
monument  marks  the  spot.  (See  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp. 
406-411.) 

The  Virginia  Conference  assembled  at  Norfolk,  Va.,  Novem- 
ber, 1871,  selecting  the  place  in  refutation  of  the  allegations,  that 
those  who  had  withdrawn  in  1870  had  dissolved  it,  either  practi- 
cally or  legally.  The  Hopewell  church  property  case  had  estab- 
lished its  legal  status;  the  Holston  Conference,  which  had  been 
set  off  in  the  southwest  of  the  State,  was  merged  in  it,  and  its 
annual  sessions  have  been  continuous  ever  since.  Yadkin  Col- 
lege, having  been  repaired  and  reconstructed  in  organization,  was 
formally  accepted  by  the  North  Carolina  Conference  at  its  annual 
session  of  1871,  and  has  continued  under  its  patronage,  with 
varied  fortune,  to  the  present  time.  President  S.  Simpson  labored 
for  a  series  of  years  to  establish  it,  and  his  successors  likewise, 
under  disadvantages  of  location  and  other  discouragements. 

Rev.  Dr.  D.  D.  Whedon,  editor  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Reviewy  and  editor  Nesbit,  of  the  Pittsburgh  Christian  Advocate, 
sharply  discussed  Prelatical  and  Presbyterial  Episcopacy,  the 
former  stoutly  contending  for  the  prelatical  view  of  Methodist 
Episcopacy,  and  was  the  head  of  a  school  of  thought,  not  yet 
quite  extinct  in  that  Church,  with  its  inconsequent  reasoning,  its 
bald  assumptions,  and  its  inconsistent  positions  as  to  Wesley, 
Coke,  and  Asbury.  The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  assembled  in  May,  1872.  The  lay-delegates, 
elected  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  three  of  the  ministers,  took 
their  seats  by  action  of  the  Conference,  just  ninety-nine  years 
after  the  assembly  of  the  first  Conference,  —  it  had  cost  a  century 
of  struggle  to  wrest  the  pitiful  boon  from  the  exclusive  clerical 
governmental  aristocrats.  The  General  Conference  of  1870  had 
appointed  Hon.  George  Vickers  and  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray  as 
fraternal  messengers;  the  former  was  detained  by  his  duties  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  so  that  the  latter  represented  the 
Church.  He  was  cordially  received,  and  made  an  acceptable 
address ;  even  his  declaration,  You  would  not  have  me  say  that 
you  have  made  no  mistakes,"  with  mental  reference  to  the  doings 
of  1820-30,  elicited  no  dissent,  except  to  put  the  body  in  more 
alert  attitude  as  listeners.  This,  or  something  like  it,  seems  to 
have  put  the  grave  and  reverend  seniors  into  a  pacific  mood,  as 
they  invited  the  cooperation  of  other  Methodist  bodies,  with  their 


522 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Missionary  Church  Extension  Society,  the  Freedman's  Aid 
Society,  etc.,  but  mark  the  inevitable  provisos,  "but  only  so  that 
no  loss  shall  accrue  to  us  through  such  arrangements";  with 
instructions  to  their  officials  to  "be  careful  to  locate  the  schools 
where  they  will  be  of  the  most  advantage  to  our  Church." 

The  Maryland  Conference  at  its  session  of  March,  1872,  made 
a  tentative  effort  to  reconstruct  the  Book  Concern  by  raising  a 
fund  of  310,000  on  a  cooperative  plan,  through  W.  J.  C.  Du- 
lany's  book  establishment,  but  it  did  not  materialize.  An  effort 
was  made  by  the  West  Virginia  Conference  to  establish  a  school, 
or  college,  at  Pruntytown,  W.  Va.,  in  the  autumn  of  1872.  Rev. 
Henry  Xice,  pastor  of  Cumberland,  Md.,  station,  leading  a  dis- 
affected section,  was  tried  and  suspended  by  Conference  action 
for  malfeasance.  The  proceedings  culminated  in  the  secession  of 
the  majority,  who  held  possession  of  the  church  and  parsonage, 
and  the  disloyal  pastor  was  received  into  the  Baltimore  Confer- 
ence of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  carrying  the  property 
and  his  adherents  with  him.  Litigation  to  recover  it  by  the 
minority  resulted  in  a  favorable  decision  by  the  civil  court  on  the 
principle  of  common  law  and  equity,  that  those  who  adhere  are 
the  legal  representatives  of  those  who  built  the  property  for 
specified  use  denominationally.  Coming  so  near  the  General 
Conference  action  of  the  old  Church  just  referred  to,  it  is  not 
known  whether  the  Baltimore  Conference  took  their  cue  in  thus 
making  themselves  a  party  to  the  transaction  as  an  illustration 
of  the  cooperation  invited  with  other  Methodist  bodies,  "  so  that 
no  loss  shall  accrue  to  us,"  or  not.  To  say  the  least,  it  was 
utterly  discourteous  to  a  sister  Methodism.^ 

A  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  was  formed  at  the 

1  The  disaffected  majority  held  possession  under  encouragement  from  the  pre- 
siding elder  of  that  district  for  several  years  before  the  minority  could  secure 
legal  decision,  which  was  finally  made  in  our  favor  by  .Judge  Pearre  in  1874. 
During  the  pendency  of  the  case  the  -Maryland  Conference,  trusting  in  the  sense 
of  ecclesiastical  comity  of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  appointed  the  venerable 
Rev.  Dr.  Augustus  "Webster  to  visit  the  annual  session  of  1874,  and  secure  if  pos- 
sible a  hearing  in  the  case.  He  was  kindly  received,  and  the  matter  referred  to 
a  committee,  with  the  assurance  to  him  that  when  they  met  he  should  have  an 
opportunity  of  being  heard  before  it.  He  attended  with  this  purpose  for  several 
days,  when  he  was  surprised  to  hear  that  the  committee  was  ready  to  report,  and 
did  so  with  the  decision  that  they  had  "  no  jurisdiction  "  in  the  case,  and  without 
debate  it  was  approved.  The  elder  then  blandly  approached  Dr.  Webster,  who 
was  present,  and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  report.  Righteously  indig- 
nant over  the  breach  of  faith  with  him,  he  bluffly  answered,  "  I  think  the  receiver 
is  as  bad  as  the  thief."  Not  a  few  of  the  brethren  have  never  since  been  proud 
of  their  conduct  on  this  occasion. 


LEADING  CURRENT  EVENTS 


523 


East  Baltimore  station  in  1872,  largely  through  the  efforts  of  the 
pastor's  wife,  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  W.  .Murray,  and  Jane  R.  Roberts. 
It  was  the  first  of  its  kind  in  the  Church,  and,  as  no  such  work 
existed  as  yet  in  it,  this  society  for  some  years  operated  as  an 
auxiliary  to  the  Woman's  Union  Society  of  New  York,  on  an  un- 
denominational basis.  Dr.  Curry,  editor  of  the  iVew  York  Chris- 
tian Advocate^  in  January,  1873,  put  a  damper  of  discouragement 
upon  the  movement  for  general  Methodistic  Union,  with  the 
result  that  Alexander  Clark,  of  the  Methodist  Recorder,  earnestly 
advocated  a  reunion  of  the  Methodist  with  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church.  Rev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  having  succeeded  J.  T. 
Murray  as  editor  of  the  official  Baltimore  paper,  assisted  by  Dr. 
Augustus  Webster  and  Dr.  S.  B.  Southerland,  he  resigned  in 
May,  1873,  in  favor  of  the  former  committee  plan  with  joint 
powers,  and  for  1873,  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  1874, 
the  committee  was  Drs.  Augustus  Webster,  L.  W.  Bates,  and  S. 
B.  Southerland.  Volume  40  of  the  paper  began  with  the  issue 
of  July  12,  1873.  Quite  a  discussion  arose  in  the  paper  over  a 
proposal  to  strike  out  the  word  "  white  "  by  the  ensuing  General 
Convention,  which  elicited  a  diversity  of  opinion,  but  strongly 
in  favor.  The  Maryland  Conference  at  its  session  of  1873  had, 
through  A.  Webster,  J.  K.  Nichols,  and  others,  resolved  to  rec- 
ommend to  the  Annual  Conferences  to  substitute  for  the  12th 
Article  of  the  Constitution,  "  Each  Annual  Conference  shall  have 
power  to  define  terms  of  membership  and  eligibility  to  office 
within  its  own  district."  This  would  have  eliminated  the  word 
"  white  "  from  the  book,  and  it  was  a  growing  sentiment  in  the 
Church.  The  Protestant  Advocate,  a  weekly  paper,  was  inaugu- 
rated in  Georgia,  by  Rev.  J.  G.  Coldwell,  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Conference.  He  was  a  strong  writer,  and  the  enterprise  was 
pushed  with  energy;  but  after  a  few  years  declined  to  its  extinc- 
tion, adding  one  more  to  such  wrecks  along  the  ecclesiastical 
shore.  The  Central  Protestant,  a  weekly  paper,  was  proposed  for 
North  Carolina,  by  J.  L.  Michaux,  editor  and  proprietor.  The 
first  number  was  issued  February  14,  1874,  at  Greensboro', 
N.  C,  folio  sheet  of  four  pages.  It  was  patronized  by  the  Con- 
ference and  assisted  by  brethren,  but  without  financial  responsi- 
bility by  the  body.  The  editor,  having  lost  his  preaching  voice, 
resorted,  in  part,  to  this  enterprise  for  a  subsistence,  and, 
through  toils  and  sacrifices,  and  a  single-eyed  devotion  rarely 
equalled,  he  maintained  its  existence,  under  varying  fortune, 
until  1890,  a  period  of  sixteen  years,  the  best  sustained  effort  to 


524  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


keep  alive  an  Annual  Conference  organ  in  the  history  of  such 
enterprises.  The  Pennsylvania  Methodist  Protestant  was  inaugu- 
rated by  Kev.  G.  W.  Sterigere  of  that  Conference,  and  its  first 
number  appeared  April  11,  1874.  It  was  a  monthly  at  fifty  cents 
a  year,  small  quarto  of  four  pages.  It  was  continued  about  a 
year,  and  then  went  the  way  of  all  ephemeral  things,  despite  the 
devotion  and  ability  of  its  projector.  The  Book  Concern  at 
Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  was  burnt  out  early  in  January,  1874,  but 
soon  recovered  its  normal  condition. 

Ivy  Harris  of  North  Carolina  died  October  19,  1872,  aged 
eighty-six  years.  He  was  one  of  the  most  influential  and  pro- 
nounced of  the  original  Reformers  and  the  progenitor  of  a  family 
whose  consecration  to  the  cause  is  perpetuated  to  this  day.  The 
name  of  Harris  and  Methodist  Reform  in  that  State  are  identical. 
His  masterful  correspondence  with  Rev.  William  Compton  of  the 
old  Church  anent  the  expulsion  of  Lewellyn  Jones  for  his  Reform 
principles  is  preserved,  in  the  full  text,  in  Paris's  "History," 
pp.  102-125.  He  departed  in  peace,  and  his  memory  is  blessed. 
Rev.  H.  T.  Arnold  of  South  Carolina,  Reformer,  died  November 
30,  1872;  Rev.  W.  C.  Pool,  the  co-martyr  with  Dennis  B.  Dorsey, 
in  1827,  of  Reform,  after  a  varied  experience  of  ministerial  and 
secular  employ  as  surveyor,  etc.,  found  an  honored  grave  in 
Nebraska,  then  a  frontier,  December  14,  1872;  John  Jervis, 
Reformer  of  Maryland,  aged  eighty-four  years,  obituaries  Janu- 
ary 18  and  25,  1873;  Henry  Webster,  Reformer  of  Harford 
County,  Md.,  January  25,  1873;  David  Arthur  of  Chestertown, 
Md.,  early  Reformer,  aged  eighty -three,  April  5,  1873;  Hiram 
Harding,  M.D.,  of  Virginia,  early  Reformer,  April  19,  1873; 
John  Rose,  M.D.,  of  Baltimore,  Md.,  early  Reformer,  March 
14  and  28,  1874;  Rev.  Jordan  Chandler,  early  Reformer,  May 
9,  1874. 

The  Eleventh  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  convened  at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  May  1,  1874,  by  calling 
Rev.  John  Paris  of  North  Carolina  to  the  chair,  and  J.  W. 
Charlton  of  Maryland,  Secretary.  A  committee  on  credentials 
reported  the  following  as  representatives-elect  to  the  body :  — 


VlBGINlA 


Ministers 


Laymen 


M.  J.  Langhorne 
George  R.  Barr 
J.  G.  Johnson 


I.  S.  McQuown 
S.  K.  Brooks 
C.  W.  Button 


LYNCHBURG  GENERAL  CONFERENCE,  1874 


Ministers 
L.  W.  Bates 

D.  A.  Shermer 
David  Wilson 

E.  J.  Drinkhouse 
S.  B.  Southerland 
D.  W.  Bates 

J.  W.  Charlton 
W.  S.  Hammond 
W.  M.  Strayer 
J.  J.  Murray 
T.  D.  Valiant 


John  Paris 
J.  H.  Gilbreath 
J.  R.  Ball 
A.  C.  Harris 
J.  L.  Michaux 
J.  H.  Page 
T.  H.  Pegram 


Maryland 

Laymen 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
R.  S.  Griffith 
W.  B.  Usilton 
J.  W.  Thompson 
O.  Hammond 
A.  Donelson 
Pare  Wilmer 
T.  A.  Newman 
S.  S.  Ewell 
J.  A.  Kenneday 
Charles  Billingslea 

North  Carolina 

F.  H.  Whitaker 
S.  Simpson 
W.  A.  Harris 
W.  J.  Ellis 
W.  A.  Lindsey 
J.  M.  Odell 
L.  W.  Batchelor 
J.  L.  Ogburn 


F.  H.  M.  Henderson 
J.  Q.  A.  Redford 

G.  H.  McFaden 
D.  J.  Sampley 
W.  J.  Nolen 


Georgia 


Alabama 


J.  W.  Adamson 
J.  B.  McDaniel 


B.  S.  Bibb 

C.  E.  Crenshaw 
A.  H.  Townsend 


West  Virginia 


George  Nestor 
O.  Lowther 

G.  W.  Barrett 
John  Clark 
W.  M.  Betts 

H.  P.  F.  King 
E.  F.  Westfall 


J.  B.  Watson 

A.  T.  Cralle 

B.  Jackson 

W.  Vandervort 
W.  J.  Lowther 
Samuel  Saylor 
J.  H.  Curray 


John  Burdine 
W.  J.  Finley 


South  Carolina 


Tennessee 


Lewis  Yarborough 


Wm.  Collins 


G,  W.  Johnson 


Texas 

Young  Smith 


526  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Pennsylvania 


Ministers 
J.  K.  Helmbold 

G.  W.  Boxell 

Elijah  Red 


Indiana 


Mississippi 


Laymen 
John  KitsoQ 


J.  Rodgers 


W.  B.  Nance 


Illinois  and  Des  Moines 
John  Sexsmith  Orestes  Ames 

Arkansas  and  Louisiana 

J.  W.  Harper  W.  F.  Wallace 

Elijah  Hearn 


J.  M.  P.  Hickerson 


J.  A.  Fussell 


John  Stone 


G.  P.  MUler 


Eli  Terry 


West  Tennessee 

J.  T.  Ray 

North  Tennessee 

J.  W.  Patrick 


McCaine 


Colorado 


J.  C.  Wayland 


J.  J.  Mabry 


There  are  no  notations  of  those  absent,  but  the  writer's  recol- 
lection, as  a  member  present,  is  that  it  was  not  large,  and  con- 
fined to  the  outlying  Conferences. 

The  election  for  permanent  officers  resulted  in  L.  W.  Bates, 
President;  A.  C.  Harris  and  J.  B.  Watson,  Secretaries.  The 
President  announced  the  usual  standing  committees.  The  order 
of  Deacons  was  stricken  from  the  Discipline,  with  the  form  of 
ordination.  The  fraternal  greetings  of  the  Conference  were  sent 
to  the  General  Conference  of  the  Church  South,  then  in  session 
at  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  a  reciprocating  message  was  received  in 
return.  Lynchburg,  Norfolk,  and  Heath ville  of  Va.,  were  added 
to  the  Maryland  District.  The  Committee  on  Literature  re- 
ported, commending  Yadkin  and  Western  Maryland  Colleges  with 
the  Theological  department  of  the  latter  to  the  care  and  patronage 
of  the  Church,  and  favorable  mention  made  of  a  proposal  from  the 


COMMISSIONERS  AND  UNION  PROPOSALS  527 


trustees  of  Bowdon  College,  Georgia,  to  make  it  a  Conference 
institution  on  given  conditions.  Rev.  Dr.  E.  B.  Thomson  of 
Virginia  was  made  an  honorary  member  of  the  Conference.  Rev. 
Dr.  Wesley  Kenney,  from  the  General  Conference  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  was  introduced,  and  addressed  the  Con- 
ference fraternally  and  officially.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates  responding. 
Two-thirds  of  the  Annual  Conferences  not  having  concurred  in 
any  of  the  proposed  changes  of  the  Constitution,  none  was  made. 
The  Committee  on  Home  and  Foreign  Missions  reported,  deplor- 
ing that  the  Church  had  done  so  little  in  this  direction,  and  mak- 
ing sundry  recommendations,  among  them  one  for  a  new  Board : 
S.  B.  Southerland,  R.  S.  Rowe,  F.  Swentzel,  Thomas  McCor- 
mick,  H.  T.  Gernhardt,  ministers.  Laymen:  W.  S.  Greenwood, 
F.  A.  Fairbank,  J.  G.  Clarke,  William  Bond,  J.  E.  A.  Cunning- 
ham, James  Bond,  and  James  Frame.  Rev.  Alexander  Clark, 
editor,  and  James  Robison,  publisher,  of  the  Methodist  Recorder^ 
were  introduced,  and  expressed  the  cordial  fraternal  greeting  of 
the  Methodist  Church,  which  was  responded  to  by  Rev.  Dr.  L.  W. 
Bates  on  behalf  of  the  General  Conference.  A  report  from  a 
special  committee,  through  John  Paris,  was  read  three  times  and 
adopted,  with  great  unanimity,  as  follows :  — 

Whereas,  this  General  Conference  is  satisfied  that  there  is  a  growing 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  membership  of  the  M.  P.  Church  to  hold  a  General 
Convention  to  take  into  consideration  certain  changes  in  the  Constitution  of 
the  Church  —  Therefore, 

1.  Resolved,  That  we  recommend  the  Annual  Conferences  composing  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church,  to  unite  unanimously  in  a  call  for  a  General 
Convention  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  such  changes  in  the  2nd,  10th  and 
14th  Articles  of  the  Constitution  of  the  M.  P.  Church  as  may  be  deemed  by 
said  Convention  necessary,  together  with  such  alterations  in  all  other  articles 
of  the  Constitution  and  book  of  discipline,  as  they  may  judge  proper. 

2.  Resolved,  That  said  Convention  shall  meet  at  Abingdon,  Va.,  on  the 
first  Friday  in  May,  1878. 

3.  Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  nine  persons  be  appointed  by  this  Gen- 
eral Conference  to  confer  with  any  like  commission  from  any  Methodist  body 
in  America  who  may  signify  a  desire  to  confer  with  them  upon  the  subject  of 
union  with  the  M.  P.  Church ;  and  especially  with  a  committee  of  9,  to  be 
appointed  by  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church,  which  has 
made  overtures  to  us  for  a  reunion,  believing  it  to  be  the  desire  of  the  major- 
ity of  the  members  of  the  Methodist  Church  to  effect  a  union  of  the  Metho- 
dist and  Methodist  Protestant  Churches,  upon  terms  which  shall  be  alike 
agreeable  and  honorable  to  each  ;  and  to  submit  the  terms  of  union  to  the 
General  Convention  herein  before  provided  for. 

4.  Resolved,  That  said  Commissioners  shall  be  appointed  as  follows : 
2  Ministers  and  1  Layman  from  Maryland ;  1  Minister  and  1  Layman  from 


528 


niSTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


West  Virginia  ;  1  Minister  and  1  Layman  from  North  Carolina  ;  1  Layman 
from  Virginia,  and  1  Minister  from  Tennessee.  The  representatives  from  the 
respective  Conferences  shall  nominate  by  ballot  from  among  their  own  num- 
ber, to  be  confirmed  by  this  General  Conference. 

In  the  event  of  the  death  of  any  Commissioner  thus  chosen  before  the  time 
of  meeting  as  heretofore  named,  the  standing  District  Committee  of  the  Con- 
ference having  the  vacancy  shall  have  power  to  name  a  substitute. 

The  following  are  the  nine  Commissioners  elected  under  the 
4th  Kesolution:  Eev.  L.  W.  Bates,  Rev.  S.  B.  Southerland,  and 
O.  Hammond  of  Maryland;  Eev.  E.  F.  Westfall  and  W.  V. 
Chidester  of  West  Virginia;  Rev.  R.  H.  Wills  and  S.  Simpson 
of  North  Carolina;  M.  T.  Peebles  of  Virginia;  Rev.  B.  F. 
Duggan  of  Tennessee. 

The  Committee  on  Revision  of  the  Discipline  suggested  sundry- 
minor  changes,  which  were  adopted  (see  revised  edition).  The 
Committee  on  Statistics  reported  by  Conferences,  several  not 
heard  from  and  others  imperfect  as  to  details,  giving  totals: 
itinerants,  546;  members,  49,310;  value  of  church  property, 
^1,122,351.  Abingdon,  Va.,  was  selected  as  the  place  for  the 
next  General  Conference.  Fraternal  messengers  were  appointed 
to  the  Methodist,  the  Methodist  Episcopal,  and  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South.  The  Conference  adjourned  May  12, 
1874,  with  prayer  and  benediction. 

The  Convention  on  the  Book  Concern  and  Periodical  was  held 
May  5,  in  an  interval  of  General  Conference.  C.  W.  Button  was 
called  to  the  chair,  and  W.  S.  Hammond,  Secretary.  The  report 
of  the  Book  Directory  was  read,  and  made  the  following  exhibit :  — 


General  View  of  the  Business  of  the  Concern 


1.  Estimated  vwrth  of  Concern,  March  1,  1874  : 

Ledger  accounts  

Merchandise  (stock  on  hand)  

Baltimore  City  Stock  


§813  05 

1,985  14 

2,500  00 

1,014  86 


Cash 


S6.313  05 


LIABILITIES 


Ledger  accounts  

Amount  due  2,8.34  subscribers,  aggregating  867 
full  subscribers,  for  one  year,  to  the  Methodist 
Protestant  


809  22 


1,647  30 


2,456  52 


Net  worth  of  Concern,  March  1,  1874 


$3,856  53 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  BOOK  CONCERN 


629 


2.  Estimated  worth  of  Concern,  March  1,  1870  : 

Bill  receivable   $1,312  88 

Merchandise  (stock  on  hand)   1,682  34 

Baltimore  City  Stock   2,500  00 

Cash   1,860  46 

$7,355  67 

Liabilities   188  85 

  $7,166  82 

Net  loss  in  four  years  was  $3,310  29 

Showing  an  average  loss  for  each  year  of  $827.57. 

The  loss  for  the  year  just  closed  was  $1,019.80,  which  further  shows  that 
our  losses  are  increasing. 

The  item  of  amount  due  subscribers,  $1,647.30,  has  not  heretofore  been 
estimated  a  "liability,"  the  "goodwill"  or  "list"  of  the  Concern  being 
considered  a  just  offset. 

3.  Subscription  to  the  Methodist  Protestant : 

Number  of  Subscribers  March  1,  1871    3,260 

an  increase  over  1870  of  75. 
Number  of  Subscribers  March  1,  1872    3,374 

an  increase  over  1871  of  114. 
Number  of  Subscribers  March  1,  1873    3,254 

a  decrease  on  1872  of  120. 
Number  of  Subscribers  March  1,  1874    2,834 

a  decrease  on  1873  of  420. 

4.  Management  of  Methodist  Protestant. 

On  the  3d  of  April,  1871,  the  Directory  elected  Rev.  J.  T.  Murray,  D.D., 
editor,  at  a  salary  not  to  exceed  $800  per  annum  ;  which  position  he  filled 
till  March,  1872,  and  received  for  his  services  the  supposed  or  real  profits  of 
the  Concern  for  the  year  ending  March,  1872,  amounting  to  $462.95. 

On  the  11th  of  April,  1872,  the  Directory  elected  Rev.  L.  W.  Bates,  D.D., 
editor  for  one  year,  without  compensation,  which  position  he  held  till  20th 
May,  1873,  when  he  resigned,  since  which  time  the  paper  has  been  conducted 
under  the  management  of  an  Editorial  Committee,  composed  of  Dr.  L.  W. 
Bates,  Dr.  A.  Webster,  Dr.  S.  B.  Southerland,  and  Dr.  J.  T.  Murray. 

An  elaborate  plan  from  the  Maryland  Conference  for  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Book  Concern  was  submitted,  referred,  and,  by 
the  General  Conference  committee,  disapproved  as  impracticable. 
(See  printed  Convention  Minutes,  pp.  25,  26.)  May  8  another 
session  was  held,  with  unimportant  results.  May  11  another 
meeting,  when  the  Committee  on  Book  Concern  and  Periodical 
submitted  a  plan,  the  salient  points  of  which  are  as  follows:  — 

1.  In  reference  to  the  Book  Concern,  to  secure  the  services  of  some  one 
established  in  business  in  the  book  trade,  as  agent,  who  shall  furnish  office 
room  for  the  Book  Concern  and  Periodical,  light  and  fuel ;  and  shall  have 

VOL.  II  —  2m 


530 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


exclusive  control  of  the  business  of  the  Book  Concern,  keeping  always  on 
hand  an  ample  supply  of  our  Church  Hymn  Books  and  Disciplines.  As  com- 
pensation for  his  services  and  the  facilities  furnished  the  Periodical  and 
Editor,  he  shall  have  the  use  of  the  copyrights  and  plates  of  the  Book  Concern. 

In  entering  into  this  arrangement  he  may  purchase  the  present  stock  in 
trade  of  the  Concern  at  the  just  valuation  of  three  disinterested  persons  in 
the  book  trade. 

2.  The  Convention  shall  elect  a  new  Directory,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to 
carry  into  effect  the  measures  herein  proposed. 

The  Convention  shall  also  elect  an  Editor,  who  shall  have  charge  of  the 
Church  paper  and  manage  all  the  business  pertaining  thereto. 

The  Directory  shall  exercise  a  general  supervision  and  control  of  the  pub- 
lishing interests  of  the  Church.  They  shall  fix  the  salary  of  the  Editor,  and 
act  for  this  Convention  in  the  interim  of  its  sittings  in  any  matter  relating  to 
its  publishing  interest ;  and  should  said  Directory  fail  in  perfecting  the 
arrangements  herein  proposed,  then  full  authority  is  herein  given  for  the 
adoption  of  any  other  plan  that  will  best  subserve  the  interests  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church. 

And  we  would  recommend  these  arrangements  to  go  into  effect,  at  as  early 
a  day  as  may  be  found  practicable. 

As  to  the  change  proposed  in  a  paper  referred  to  us,  looking  to  a  change 
of  the  paper  from  a  folio  to  a  quarto,  we  advise  that  it  be  left  optional  with 
the  Directory. 


The  plan  was  adopted.  The  salary  of  the  retiring  Agent, 
T.  W.  Ewing,  was,  by  order,  continued  until  October  1,  1874,  as  a 
gratuity.  May  12  a  final  session  was  held  and  the  following  new 
Directory  elected:  H.  Y.  Zollickoffer,  T.  B.  Bateman,  H.  T. 
Gernhardt,  J.  G.  Clarke,  W.  J.  C.  Dulany,  James  Frame,  with 
L.  W.  Bates  and  D.  E.  Keese,  ex  officiis.  All  were  new  mem- 
bers but  Clarke  and  Dulany.  "Dr.  E.  J.  Drinkhouse  was 
elected  Editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant.  Whole  number  of 
votes  cast,  thirty-six;  number  cast  for  Dr.  Drinkhouse,  twenty- 
four."  Pledges  were  made  to  support  the  periodical  and  Concern. 
After  incidental  business  the  Convention  adjourned. 

Some  facts  of  history  demand  recognition  not  heretofore  con- 
sidered, so  as  not  to  break  the  flow  of  the  official  business  of  this 
Conference  and  the  Convention  on  Book  Concern.  Not  one  of 
the  "Methodist"  Commissioners  appointed  to  treat  with  the 
Church  on  union  appeared  at  Lynchburg,  on  the  ground  that  the 
General  Conference  of  1870  had  stricken  out  the  authorization  of 


John  Paris, 


William  Collins, 
G.  W.  Johnson, 
B.  S.  Bibb, 
John  Burdine. 


Wm.  B.  Usilton, 
George  Nestor, 
George  R.  Barr, 
J.  W.  Adamson, 


A  PERIOD  OF  GLOOM  IN  THE  CHURCH 


531 


Commissioners  to  meet  those  appointed  by  their  General  Con- 
ference of  1871,  consisting  of  John  Scott,  John  Burns,  F.  H. 
Pierpont,  A.  H.  Bassett,  and  H.  E.  H.  Hartsock,  who  were  em- 
powered to  "  receive  any  proposition  looking  toward  union  that 
might  be  made them,  but  not  to  offer  any.  Dr.  Scott,  in  his 
work,  "Fifty  Years,"  says,  "These  commissioners,  for  what  they 
considered  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  did  not  attend."  He  also 
gives  the  full  text  of  a  private  correspondence  between  the  writer 
and  himself  anent  this  matter.  The  fraternal  messengers,  Alex- 
ander Clark  and  James  Kobison,  made  and  received  some  expla- 
nations at  Lynchburg,  which  led  to  the  action  the  Conference 
took,  as  already  given.  As  a  finality.  Dr.  Scott  adds,  "  There  is 
one  amusing  thing,  however,  which  cannot  fail  to  be  noticed  in 
connection  with  the  action  of  each  of  the  parties  to  the  proposed 
union,  and  that  is  the  caution  taken  to  prevent  the  impression 
that  it  was  the  party  that  first  proposed  the  union."  He  leaves 
the  reader  to  his  own  inferences,  and  the  writer  will  do  the  same. 

It  was  the  gloomiest  period  in  the  history  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  and  was  felt  by  the  representatives  at  Lynch- 
burg. Then  were  revealed  the  devastating  effects  of  the  aborted 
Union  movement  with  the  Church  South.  The  condition  of  the 
Book  Concern  and  periodical  was  critical  in  the  extreme.  After 
the  greenback  issues  of  the  Civil  War,  and  the  inflation  of  arti- 
ficial values,  there  came  the  necessary  reaction,  and  the  period  of 
1872-76  was  one  of  depreciation  and  well-nigh  panic.  All  the 
Churches  shared  in  the  depression,  and,  as  is  the  case  in  times  of 
discouragement,  they  cast  about  for  helps;  and  it  inaugurated 
among  the  Methodists  in  particular  the  era  of  fraternity  and 
"Union."  It  developed  a  marvellous  tenacity  and  fidelity  to 
principles  at  the  same  time,  and,  if  the  writer  were  disposed  to 
claim  special  providential  oversight,  it  is  apparent  that  nothing 
but  such  oversight  saved  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  in  its 
disunited  sections,  from  absorption,  and  proclaimed  its  mission 
among  the  Churches,  not  yet  accomplished.  With  the  best 
motive  ecclesiastical  selfishness  is  capable  of,  not  a  few  of  the 
prominent  ministers  were  baited  to  change  their  Church  relations. 
The  futility  of  such  a  struggle,  as  churches,  was  pointed  out,  and 
the  fatuity  of  preachers,  whose  abilities  would  command  ample 
temporal  support,  still  adhering,  with  the  love  of  personal  sacri- 
fice, to  a  theory  of  church  government,  insidiously  urged.  One 
case  is  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  the  writer.  A  minister  of  the 
Tennessee  Conference,  who  had  won  reputation  in  all  his  section 


632 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


as  a  forcible  and  eloquent  preacher,  was  approached  by  a  Presid- 
ing Elder,  a  personal  friend,  with  the  kindly  meant  suggestion 
that  his  own  destitution,  as  well  as  that  of  his  family,  could  be 
relieved,  with  the  promise  of  an  appointment  that  would  amply 
support  him  and  family,  if  he  would  come  into  the  Methodist 
Church,  South.  The  ill-provided  brother  listened  in  tearful 
silence,  knowing  that  the  offer  was  one  of  friendship  and  sin- 
cerely made,  and  then  gave  answer,  "I  cannot  do  it!"  He  is 
still  a  minister  in  the  Church.  It  was  about  this  time  that  the 
writer,  not  among  the  ill-paid  and  not  open  to  such  a  temptation, 
wrote  for  the  encouragement  of  all  true  men,  an  article  for  the 
official  paper  on  the  "  Moral  Heroism  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Preacher,"  which  is  here  in  part  reproduced  with  a  like  purpose. 

Not  the  fathers  only,  but  their  honored  sons  in  the  gospel,  are 
worthy  of  such  designation,  the  contention  of  to-day  losing  none 
of  the  features  of  the  contention  of  1820-30.  It  was  one  of  those 
anomalies  in  governmental  reform,  whether  profane  or  sacred, 
when  concessions  are  proposed  by  those  who  represent  the  throne, 
and  authority  itself  suggesting  the  distribution  of  its  powers. 
That  ministers  should  have  engaged  in  this  scheme  of  self-abne- 
gation, and  joined  the  voice  of  the  people,  whose  rights  had  been 
overslaughed  by  the  divinely  authorized  lawmakers  and  ex- 
pounders, is  irrefragable  proof  of  their  distinguished  moral  worth 
and  exalted  heroism.  The  churchmanship  which  could  anticipate 
the  struggle  which  has  since  marked  the  political  history  of  both 
the  great  mother  organizations,  resulting  in  lay-delegation  in 
their  respective  councils,  could  also  vaticinate  the  bitter  preju- 
dice, loss  of  social  position,  personal  hardship,  and  other  at- 
tendants of  a  state  of  persecution  which  followed  the  dangerous 
experiment  upon  which  they  resolved  to  enter.  They  were  men 
of  inflexible  will  and  leonine  heart,  and  for  what?  Redress  of 
personal  grievance  as  ministers?  Party  ambition  in  those  who 
were  behind  the  throne  in  their  day,  and  courted  to  share  the 
irresponsible  functions?  Who,  in  consenting  to  expulsion  and 
separation  from  all  the  loved  associations  of  their  spiritual 
mother,  also  consented  to  slanderous  aspersions  of  their  fair 
names,  the  inquisition  of  their  motives,  and  the  traducement  of 
their  purposes?  Was  it  to  leave  the  strong  side  for  the  weak? 
He  has  read  the  history  of  human  nature  without  profit  who  can- 
not see  a  sublime  spectacle  in  this  procedure  of  a  privileged  class 
of  men  voluntarily  descending  from  their  elevation,  and.  on  their 
own  motion,  parting  with  povjeVy  that  element  whose  tendency  is  to 


MORAL  UEIiOISM  OF  REFORM  PREACUERS 


633 


accumulation,  and  its  march  ever  onward,  and  accepting  position 
in  a  Christian  brotherhood  where  the  minister  is  the  equal  of 
all,  but  the  superior  of  none. 

All  great  movements  in  Church  or  State,  under  the  leadership 
of  advanced  ideas,  never  find  the  people,  in  their  average  mental 
and  moral  status,  abreast  with  the  progress  proposed;  otherwise 
advanced  ideas  would  be  a  solecism,  and  leadership  a  name. 
Progress  would  then  be  in  masses,  and  such  coincidence  of  revo- 
lutionary thought  contradicts  all  historic  experience  in  science  or 
religion.  When  it  is  admitted,  therefore,  that  popular  Metho- 
dism, in  the  early  days  of  Eeform,  was  not  prepared  for  what  has 
been  stigmatized  as  "  radical "  changes,  it  is  no  argument  against 
the  truth  for  which  the  Church  has  set  itself  in  defence;  but  a 
simple  iteration,  in  fact,  of  what  is  true  of  every  step  taken  by 
advancing  society.  It  does  not  strip  the  garlands,  which  their 
children  have  woven,  from  the  reverend  heads  of  the  hero  fathers. 
They  were  men  of  advanced  ideas,  as  their  writings  attest; 
imbued  with  a  sense  of  religious  liberty,  so  Christ-like  in  its 
breadth  of  love,  as  might  not  suffer  the  exercise  of  exclusive  rule 
in  themselves,  but  insisted  on  division  of  authority  with  all  who 
are  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  people,  as  such,  were  not  much  better  prepared  for  this  on- 
ward movement  in  the  days  of  1828,  than  the  Episcopal  brethren 
are  willing  to  admit;  if  judgment  may  be  based  on  the  violent 
means  employed  for  the  suppression  and  extirpation  of  the  sus- 
picious innovation  by  the  velvet-gloved,  but  iron  hand  of  priestly 
authority. 

But,  as  in  all  kindred  measures,  an  elective  affinity  attracted 
to  its  standard  the  true  and  tried  from  out  the  serried  ranks  of 
the  Methodist  host;  and  around  them,  for  more  than  fifty  years, 
there  has  been  an  accretion  of  the  same  material,  constituting, 
for  the  most  part,  an  intelligent  and  appreciative  community  of 
men  and  women  known  as  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  It 
is  no  derogation,  then,  of  her  worthy  lay-element,  if  stress  is 
more  particularly  laid  upon  the  heroism  of  her  ministry.  Pew 
have  entered  her  itinerant  ranks  who  would  not  have  received  a 
hearty  welcome  to  the  Conferences  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  North  or  South,  and  have  been  borne  upon  their  wings 
to  positions  of  honor  and  usefulness.  Those  who  were,  and  are, 
the  young  men  have  chosen  otherwise.  They  must  be  credited 
with  an  intelligent  discrimination.  They  espoused  the  cause 
because  they  found  it  worthy.    Now  and  then  some  one  who  has 


534 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


been  nursed  upon  the  Church  bosom,  for  policy  or  pelf,  turns 
away  from  his  maternal  love,  and  gives  his  strength  to  another 
denomination,  more  respectable  (?),  mayhap,  or  overweening  in 
numbers  and  influence.  And  now  and  then  some  one,  confessing 
weakness  in  the  act,  —  the  lack  of  that  grit  which  carries  a  true 
man  forward  to  the  hero's  crown,  —  drops  out  of  the  ranks,  and 
joins  himself  where  weak  things  can  cling  and  live,  like  barna- 
cles on  the  ship's  bottom.  But  these  exceptions  granted,  the 
Conference  records  are  rolls  of  honor  —  brave  spirits  who  have 
worn  their  escutcheons  untarnished  by  the  thought  of  desertion 
or  the  feeling  of  dismay.  And  that,  too,  under  discouragements 
which,  while  they  should  not  be  magnified  on  the  one  hand,  need 
not  be  minified  on  the  other. 

The  assertion  shall  not,  then,  be  qualified  that  the  Christian 
Church,  denominationally  understood,  cannot  boast  a  more  self- 
sacrificing  ministry,  men  truer  to  principle,  and  a  high  sense  of 
ecclesiastical  honor,  than  this  heroic  ministry  of  loyalty  and  love. 
Laboring  in  many  places,  amid  local  weakness,  to  uphold  the 
distinguishing  name,  until  "  our  mission  "  shall  be  accomplished 
in  its  completeness,  the  symbol  of  the  toil-worn  brethren  might 
be  Issachar:  an  ass  between  two  burdens.  Despised  for  paucity 
of  numbers,  when  compared  with  the  parent  bodies;  the  wonder 
of  those  who  do  not  understand;  compelled  to  carry  the  Church 
because  not  strong  enough,  compensatively,  to  carry  her  ministry, 
—  bating  other  reasons  not  so  creditable  to  portions  of  her  laity, 
the  defence  of  whose  rights,  be  it  forgotten  never,  is  the  sole 
ground  of  its  separate  existence  as  a  struggling  organization,  — 
the  Methodist  Protestant  ministry  is  conspicuous  for  Moral  Hero- 
ism, and  yet  to  be  crowned  by  the  annalist  as  worthy  of  mention 
on  the  same  page  with  those  who  have  given  an  impulse  to  the 
progress  of  liberal  Christian  ideas,  and  died  in  daring  to  carry 
their  Excelsior  to  the  topmost  peak. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


Reconstruction  of  the  Book  Concern  in  Baltimore;  Sunday-school  department 
opened  in  it  —  Twelfth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church  at  Prince- 
ton, 111.,  May,  1875;  roster  of  members;  fraternal  messengers  from  the  East 
and  South ;  from  other  Methodisms  ;  synopsis  of  its  doings ;  nine  commission- 
ers appointed  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  to  meet  its  nine  previously 
appointed;  a  plan  of  Union  agreed  to  in  October,  1875 — The  M.  E.  Church 
General  Conference ;  homily  by  the  writer  on  their  ecclesiastical  system  ;  glori- 
fication of  the  machine  by  its  admirers;  its  true  genius  ;  union  with  any  other 
system  incompatible  with  it ;  the  three  F's  the  only  modus  —  Obituaries ; 
Peebles,  Ragan,  Springer  —  Union  convention  called  for  Baltimore,  May,  1877; 
local  church  papers  —  Clerical  speculators  and  Book  Concerns. 

The  Book  Concern  and  periodical  in  Baltimore  underwent  the 
radical  changes  proposed  by  the  General  Conference  in  Conven- 
tion. The  ex-committee  of  editors,  still  resident  in  the  city, 
expressed  a  desire  to  be  relieved  as  soon  as  possible,  and  the  ex- 
agent,  after  a  few  weeks,  also  retired,  having  been  paid  salary  up 
to  October  1,  1874,  or  for  five  months.  The  new  editor,  though 
at  the  time  and  for  several  months  thereafter  the  pastor  of  a 
station  in  an  adjoining  city,  found  it  necessary  to  assume  imme- 
diate control.  The  arrangement  contemplated  was  made  with 
Wm.  J.  C.  Dulany ;  the  Concern  was  removed  from  its  dilapidated 
quarters  to  his  book  establishment  on  Baltimore  Street,  with 
proper  sign  designation,  controlling  only  the  copyright  and  book 
business  of  the  Concern,  while  the  editor  found  himself  not  such 
only,  but  publisher,  bookkeeper,  and  factotum  of  the  new  arrange- 
ment. He  was  allowed  a  salary  of  $1500  for  the  combined  ser- 
vice, a  less  sum  than  that  received  at  the  time  by  the  city  pastors 
of  the  Church.  With  the  full  cooperation  of  the  new  Directory, 
the  paper  was  at  once  changed  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  July  4, 
1874,  from  a  four-page  folio  to  an  eight-page,  somewhat  reduced 
in  size,  being  the  same  form  and  measurement  as  the  Methodist 
Recorder,  without  increase  of  price.  The  contracting  printer, 
Jesse  F.  Chesney,  furnished  a  clean  typographical  dress;  the 
then  new  mailing  system  of  Dick's,  expeditious  and  accurate,  was 
introduced,  and  a  set  of  new  books  opened  by  double  entry. 

635 


536 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Within  a  year  the  subscription  list  had  risen  nearly  one  thousand ; 
the  Church  writers  came  to  its  support,  and  the  preachers  gener- 
ally pressed  its  circulation  among  the  people  under  the  new 
auspices.  More  than  this  it  would  not  be  seemly  in  the  writer 
to  record.  A  Sunday-school  column  was  opened,  and  Dr.  Webster 
for  a  period  furnished  Notes  on  the  International  Lessons. 

This  year  Rev.  Jos.  P.  Wilson,  pastor  of  the  Broadway  church, 
led  a  disaffection  and  united  with  the  Baltimore  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  writer  secured  a  private  inter- 
view with  the  presiding  Bishop,  J.  T.  Peck,  whom  he  had  known 
in  San  Francisco,  Cal.,  in  1863-66,  anent  this  affair,  and  the 
lesson  taught  them  in  the  Cumberland  church  case  made  them 
chary  of  haste  as  to  the  property,  which  by  reason  of  its  involve- 
ment in  debt  was  lost  for  several  years,  but  finally  recovered  by 
amicable  repurchase  from  the  ex-Lutheran  brethren  in  possession, 
and  has  ever  since  been  the  property  of  the  Maryland  Missionary 
Society  under  the  Conference  authority.  It  was  the  last  effort 
in  the  East  to  steal  a  church  by  disaffected  pastors.  And  the 
moral  of  these  cases  is  that  the  Church  law  as  to  property,  while 
it  gives  proper  liberty  to  local  trustees  and  congregations,  does  not 
give  license,  and  the  common  civil  law  defends  the  rights  of  those 
who  build  for  denominational  use,  even  though  reduced  to  a 
minority  of  one  loyal  adherent.  Eev.  John  Clark  departed  this 
life  December  24,  1874,  in  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age.  He 
was  an  early  Reformer  of  the  Pittsburgh,  and  afterward  was 
prominent  in  the  organization  of  the  West  Virginia  Conference, 
laborious  and  true. 

"  Journal  of  the  Twelfth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
(Protestant)  Church,  held  at  Princeton,  111.,  May  19-31,  1875." 
This  is  the  official  title-page  of  the  minutes,  twelvemo,  117  pages. 
Rev.  A.  H.  Bassett  was  made  temporary  President  and  G.  B. 
McElroy  and  S.  M.  Lowden,  Secretaries.  The  following  is  the 
roster  of  members :  — 


New  York 


Ministers 


Laymen 


J.  J.  Smith 

S.  Homan 

J,  H.  Robinson 


C.  Tomkins  i 

J.  Savage 

A.  H.  Holgatei 


New  Jersey 


F.  Stringer 
L.  D.  Stultsi 


J.  F.  Asay 
J.  D.  Stults 


1  Absent. 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  AT  PRINCETON,  1875 


Ministers 
H.  L.  Bowen 
M.  Prindle 


Onondaga 


Laymen 
P.  Weaver 
C.  D.  Graham 


E.  A.  Wheat 


Genesee 


H.  Justice 


Pittsburgh 


J.  Scott 

G.  G.  Westfall 
J.  L.  Simpson 
T.  H.  Colhouer 

H.  Palmer 
J.  Cowl 
A.  Clark 


J.  J.  Gillespie 

F.  H.  Pierpont  i 
T.  F.  Scott 

H.  T.  Reeves 

G.  W.  Pogue 
W.  Tate,  Jr. 
W.  E.  Miller 


Muskingum 


J.  Burns 
G.  W.  Hissey 
J.  M.  Woodward 
D.  Trueman 
J.  C.  Oglei 
W.  L.  Baldwin 
F.  A.  Brown 
W.  Hastings 
C.  Springer 


J.  M.  Flood 
A.  H.  Bassett 
R.  Rose 
T.  B.  Graham 
W.  R.  Parsons 
C.  S.  Evans 


Ohio 


L.  Browning 

R.  H.  Halstead 

J.  H.  Carr 

H.  E.  H.  Hartsocki 

J.  Keller  1 

G.  Porter  i 

S.  Moore 

T.  Chambers 

J.  B.  Hamilton  i 


T.  Douglas 
T.  J.  Finch 
J.  M.  Johnson 
G.  B.  Hamilton  1 
N.  M.  McConkey 
G.  W.  Kent 


G.  B.  McElroy 
J.  Warner 


Michigan 


D.  F.  Osborne 
A.  Babcock 


J.  Kost 

W.  Bakewell 


West  Michigan 


J.  Sanders 

C.  S.  Underwood 


S.  M.  Lowden 
S.  H.  Flood 
H.  Stackhouse 


Indiana 


1  Absent. 


D.  V.  Buskirki 
N.  H.  Jones 
O.  P.  Wellman 


HISTORY  OF  METUOBIST  REFORM 


North  Ixdiaxa 


Ministers 
T.  E.  Lancaster 
J.  H.  Luse 


P.  J.  Strong 
R.  Burns 


D.  B.  Turney 
S.  M.  Gentry 

W.  Huddleston 
W.  Remsburg 

E.  S.  Brown 


J.  Selby 
S.  Jones 
W.  S.  Horn 
R.  Baker 
J.  Jones  1 
L.  C.  Pace 
J.  Locey  i 

S.  A.  Cecil 
W.  M.  Kerr 


Laymen 
J.  Wright 
C.  W.  Gifti 


North  Illinois 


P.  F.  Remsburgh 
W.  P.  Lewis 


South  Illinois 


Iowa 


North  Iowa 


Minnesota 


Nebraska 


Kansas 


Missouri 


G.  Stout 
T.  Keeni 


F.  W.  Johnson 
J.  W.  Murphy 
D.  Patterson! 


0.  M.  Culver 


W.  Waldron 


R.  Pearson 


T.  N.  Newton 


J.  W.  Bush 


North  Missouri 


Kentucky 


H.  GIfiBn 


E.  L.  Woody  1 


B.  N.  Longsworth 


East  North  Carolina 

J.  B.  Cecil 

West  North  Carolina 

J.  W.  Davis  1 

Oregon  and  Washington 

W.  F.  Westi 


Tennessee  and  North  Georgia 
No  representation 

1  Absent. 


UNION  COMMISSIONERS  APPOINTED  539 


The  Daily  Recorder  was  issued  by  Rev.  A.  H.  Widney  and 
made  the  official  record  of  the  Conference.  For  permanent  offi- 
cers John  Burns  was  elected  President,  and  G.  B.  McElroy  and 
A.  H.  Bassett,  Secretaries.  Seventeen  standing  committees  were 
appointed.  Many  communications  were  received  and  amend- 
ments proposed  to  the  Discipline.  A  communication  from  Dr. 
L.  W.  Bates,  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church,  was  received,  and  also  letters  from  Rev.  George 
Nestor  and  Rev.  A.  C.  Harris,  fraternal  messengers  from  its 
General  Conference,  which  were  referred.  Several  proposals 
were  made  for  the  union  of  the  Methodist  and  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  by  members  of  the  Conference.  Referred  to 
committee  on  Methodist  Union.  Hon.  C.  W.  Button  arrived, 
delegated  as  a  fraternal  messenger  by  the  President  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  General  Conference,  who  was  most  cordially  re- 
ceived and  made  a  winning  address,  hoping  that  the  divided 
stream  of  the  Church  would  soon  be  united,  etc.  Responses 
were  made  by  Revs.  W.  R.  Parsons,  T.  H.  Colhouer,  and  John 
Scott,  advocating  the  organic  union  of  the  two  Churches.  It 
was  found  that  the  Annual  Conferences  had  not  conferred  con- 
ventional powers  upon  the  Conference.  Bishop  Janes  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  introduced  and  addressed  the 
Conference  on  fraternity  and  union.  Also  Rev.  Dr.  Hunter  in 
the  same  vein,  to  which  a  response  was  made  by  A.  H.  Bassett, 
reviewing  past  history,  congratulating  the  brethren  on  the  ad- 
vances made  toward  the  new  polity,  and  kindly  suggesting  that 
the  mission  of  the  Reform  Church  was  not  yet  accomplished. 
John  Cowl  also  addressed  fraternal  words  to  these  brethren. 
Messengers  were  appointed  to  their  ensuing  General  Confer- 
ence. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Methodistic  Union  was  read 
and  adopted,  the  first  and  pregnant  paragraph  being  as  follows : 
"  Inasmuch  as  the  cause  for  suspension  of  official  relations  by  the 
Conferences  of  the  North  now  represented  in  this  General  Con- 
ference is  now  entirely  removed  by  the  providence  of  God,  and 
the  suspension  having  from  the  first  been  declared  to  be  only  con- 
tingent upon  the  continuance  of  the  cause  complained  of.  And 
whereas,  furthermore,  the  General  Conference  of  the  South, 
assembled  at  Lynchburg,  Va.,  May,  1874,  did  in  accordance  with 
mutual  and  reciprocal  advances  for  reunion  elect  nine  commis- 
sioners, to  meet  nine  coordinate  commissioners  expected  to  be 
appointed  by  this  General  Conference  now  in  session,  to  deliber- 


640  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ate  together  and  devise  plans  for  reunion  alike  honorable  and 
desirable  to  each;  therefore  this  committee  unanimously  recom- 
mend the  election  of  nine  persons  as  commissioners  for  said 
purpose."  The  report  also  declares  against  "  the  policy  of  absorp- 
tion in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,"  etc.  Nine  commis- 
sioners were  at  once  elected  by  ballot  to  carry  out  the  purpose 
expressed:  John  Burns,  J.  J.  Smith,  T.  J.  Finch,  F.  H.  Pier- 
pont,  J.  J.  Gillespie,  E.  A.  Wheat,  P.  F.  Eemsburgh,  A.  Clark, 
G.  B.  McElroy.  The  Methodist  Board  of  Publication  reported 
totals  as  follows:  Eeceipts  from  all  sources  for  the  quadrennium, 
including  loans  of  $7735.48,  the  Springfield  property,  rents, 
etc.,  $105,470.06.  Expenditures,  including  book-room  property, 
$7000;  improvements  on  same,  $2583.27;  loans,  etc.,  $105,470.06, 
minus  $675.16,  cash  in  hand.  Assets  over  liabilities,  $17,985.04. 
The  subscription  list  of  the  Methodist  Recorder  had  grown  to 
6456  through  the  popularity  of  the  editor.  The  Sunday-school 
paper  some  time  before  had  been  changed  to  Our  Morning  Guide, 
and  under  Alexander  Clark's  tasteful  management  was  a  beauti- 
ful monthly,  which  rose  in  circulation  to  eighty  thousand.  The 
Board  of  Trustees  of  the  First  church,  Pittsburgh,  had  tendered 
the  Concern  their  parsonage  property  in  fee  for  $15,000,  appraised 
at  $25,000,  $7000  in  cash  and  the  remainder  at  6  per  cent  interest 
for  twenty-five  years.  It  placed  the  Concern  in  eligible  quarters, 
and  with  the  management  of  J.  J.  Gillespie  in  making  advances 
during  the  panic  of  1873,  settled  the  business  house  upon  a  secure 
foundation.  Through  him  a  new  charter  had  been  secured  from 
the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  affairs  of  the  Concern 
were  on  a  tide  of  prosperity.  Alexander  Clark  was  reelected 
editor,  and  James  Bobison,  Agent. 

A.  H.  Bassett  was  requested  to  prepare  a  Church  History.  A 
motion  of  S.  H.  Flood  was  adopted  to  the  effect  that  the  Com- 
missioners on  Union  be  restricted  in  their  authority  to  a  reference 
of  their  action  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  the  Metho- 
dist Church  for  ratification.  The  place  of  the  next  General 
Conference  was  left  to  the  editor  and  the  agent  of  the  Church 
paper.  Dr.  John  Scott  offered  resolutions,  which  were  adopted, 
redeclaring,  as  at  former  General  Conventions  and  Conferences, 
in  substance  that  the  Methodist  Church  was  not  a  new  Church, 
but  "that  it  is  substantially  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church," 
etc.  The  report  of  the  Board  of  Missions,  C.  H.  Williams, 
Corresponding  Secretary,  showed  tliat  during  the  quadrennium 
$5041.23  had  been  collected,  and  $4239.77  expended;  in  hand. 


UNION  COMMISSIONERS  CONVENE  541 


$801.46.  The  Treasurer  of  the  Board,  J.  C.  Claney,  had  received 
in  the  same  period  $1812.03.  Of  the  whole  sum,  $1940  had  been 
expended  in  missions,  the  remainder  in  salary  and  travelling  ex- 
penses. This  interest  had  received  a  backset  through  untoward 
causes.  Williams  was  reelected.  The  Board  of  Church  Exten- 
sion reported,  and  a  new  Board  was  elected,  located  at  Princeton, 
111. ;  A.  H.  Widney,  Corresponding  Secretary.  The  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Fraternal  Relations  appointed  messengers  to  nearly 
all  the  American  Methodisms  and  those  of  England.  The  reports 
of  the  Adrian  College  agents,  J.  S.  Thrap  for  two  years  and  N.  K. 
Swift  for  two,  are  very  encouraging,  and  submit  figures  which, 
in  the  aggregates,  run  up  net  assets  to  $239,358,  putting  the 
grounds  and  buildings,  etc.,  at  $150,000.  The  report  of  the 
Board  of  Ministerial  Education,  J.  B.  Walker,  Corresponding 
Secretary,  showed  for  the  quadrennium,  $16,547.47  collected,  of 
which  $11,418.18  went  to  beneficiaries, —  students  for  the  min- 
istry. Walker  was  reelected  on  this  excellent  showing.  (See 
Appendix  E  in  first  volume.)  A  detailed  Plan  for  Centennial 
Offerings  synchronizing  1776  and  1876,  was  matured,  but  did  not 
materialize.  A  number  of  changes  were  made  in  the  Articles  of 
Religion.  The  statistics  showed:  itinerants,  775;  unstationed 
ministers  and  preachers,  507;  membership,  53,400;  church  edi- 
fices, 667;  parsonages,  171;  value  of  church  property,  $1,767,140. 
Among  the  last  resolves  of  the  Conference  was  a  respectful  de- 
clinature of  the  overtures  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church : 
"  We  deem  it  our  bounden  duty  to  adhere  to  our  distinctive  organi- 
zation," etc.  The  Conference  adjourned,  being  memorable  for 
the  fact  that  it  was  the  last  General  Conference  ever  held  by  the 
brethren  West  and  North. 

The  appointment  of  nine  commissioners  by  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Church,  in  response  to  the  action  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  General  Conference  in  appointing  nine  com- 
missioners to  confer  with  a  "  like  number  from  any  Methodist 
church  "  desiring  Union,  at  once  opened  the  way  to  negotiations. 
An  early  meeting  was  suggested,  and  after  private  correspondence, 
it  was  agreed  between  them  to  call  an  initial  meeting  at  the  Eirst 
Church,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  October  22,  1875.  In  pursuance,  notice 
was  sent  the  Commissioners  to  assemble  at  the  place  and  time 
mentioned.  They  were :  Methodist  Church :  John  Burns,  E.  H. 
Pierpont,  J.  J.  Smith,  P.  F.  Remsburg,  E.  A.  Wheat,  J.  J. 
Gillespie,  G.  B.  McElroy,  T.  J.  Finch,  and  Alexander  Clark; 
Methodist  Protestant  Church :  L.  W.  Bates,  0.  Hammond,  S.  B. 


642  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Southerland,  W.  V.  Chidester,  B.  F.  Duggan,  M.  T.  Peebles, 
R.  H.  Wills,  S.  Simpson,  and  E.  F.  Westfall.  Those  who  actually 
attended,  some  as  alternates  and  by  proxy,  were:  Methodist 
Protestant:  L.  W.  Bates,  S.  B.  Southerland,  B.  F.  Duggan, 
R.  H.  Wills,  W.  M.  Betts,  0.  Hammond,  William  Vandervort; 
Methodist:  John  Burns,  J.  J.  Smith,  E.  A.  Wheat,  Alexander 
Clark,  G.  B.  McElroy,  P.  F.  Remsburg,  J.  J.  Gillespie,  T.  J. 
Finch,  F.  H.  Pierpont.  Interesting  preliminary  services  were 
held.  L.  W.  Bates  elected  Chairman,  and  G.  B.  McElroy,  Sec- 
retary, and  a  committee  on  Basis  of  Union  agreed  upon  as  follows : 
S.  B.  Southerland,  B.  H.  Wills,  W.  Vandervort,  J.  J.  Smith, 
E.  A.  Wheat,  P.  F.  Remsburg.  After  a  day's  deliberation,  this 
sub-committee  reported  a  Basis  of  Union,  having  received  and 
considered  numerous  suggestions  from  the  remaining  commis- 
sioners, taken  from  the  two  Constitutions  and  Disciplines  mutu- 
ally. The  full  text  of  these  changes  may  be  found  in  the  official 
paper  of  November  6,  1875.  The  salient  points  are :  The  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  to  be  the  name  of  the  reunited  Church, 
the  sections  containing  the  word  "  white  "  in  the  old  book  to  be 
stricken  out,  the  Restrictive  Rule  as  to  itinerants  to  be  restored 
under  a  four-year  limit,  and  the  ratio  of  representation  to  be  one 
of  each  class  in  every  thousand  members.  The  basis  was  agreed 
to  without  dissent  except  that  R.  H.  Wills  objected  to  striking 
out  the  word  "white."  It  was  "Resolved  that  a  Convention  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  and  Methodist  Churches  be  held  in 
Baltimore  the  second  Friday  in  May,  1877,  to  consummate  the 
whole  work."  After  sessions  running  through  three  days  this 
good  understanding  was  reached,  and  the  Commissioners  adjourned 
on  the  night  of  the  9th  of  May.  The  adjustment  was  generally 
hailed  with  approbation,  the  criticisms  and  protests  coming  from 
North  Carolina  through  W.  H.  Wills,  John  Paris,  and  A.  H. 
Harris,  and  from  Alabama  through  L.  L.  Hill.  Their  objections 
were  local  and  technical.  The  Commissioners  had  acted  so  wisely 
upon  the  whole  that  little  room  was  left  for  controversy,  and  the 
churches  settled  down  in  anticipation  of  the  coming  General 
Convention.  The  Maryland  Conference,  at  its  ensuing  session, 
March  14,  1876,  led  in  the  call,  and  before  the  time  required  it 
was  officially  announced  in  both  the  Church  papers  that  the 
requisite  two-thirds  had  united  in  the  call,  and  preparations  were 
made  in  Baltimore  to  receive  the  respective  representatives. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
met  in  Baltimore  in  May,  1879,  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  there 


"THJEJ  GREAT  IRON  WHEEL'' 


543 


being  no  church  with  capacity  to  receive  the  overgrown  body. 
About  350  delegates  were  in  attendance,  with  Bishop  Janes  as 
senior  presiding  officer.  The  Methodist  fraternal  messengers 
were  represented  by  Dr.  Alexander  Clark,  who  delivered  before 
the  Conference  an  able  and  irenic  address,  while  Dr.  S.  B.  South- 
erland  and  Hon.  C.  W.  Button  represented  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church,  and  were  equally  happy  in  their  deliverances.  Dr. 
Clark  was  on  his  way  to  England  to  attend  fraternally  the  several 
Methodist  Conferences  meeting  through  the  summer.  He  was 
everywhere  most  cordially  received  after  making  plain  the  puzzle 
of  his  Church's  name  to  the  brethren,  fulfilled  his  mission,  and 
returned  in  improved  health.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
Conference  had  embarrassing  questions  before  it :  the  "  color  line  " 
in  their  Southern  inchoate  Conferences,  the  presiding  elder  ques- 
tion, and  the  enlargement  of  the  lay-delegation  from  about  one 
in  three  to  something  like  a  respectable  recognition.  Very  little 
was  done,  however,  lay-delegation  being  referred  to  a  committee 
of  five  of  each  order  to  report  at  the  next  General  Conference. 
The  writer  took  considerable  note  of  the  proceedings  and  the 
animus  of  the  delegates,  and  embodied  his  thoughts  at  the  time 
on  the  "Great  Iron  Wheel,"  and  they  are  herewith  submitted  as 
at  once  excusatory  of  these  divinely  authorized  brethren  in  their 
views  of  prerogative  and  providence  in  their  Church  history,  and 
animadvertive  of  the  ecclesiastical  machine  and  its  methods,  as 
not  only  then  but  always  exhibited  in  such  legislative  gatherings. 

Confessedly  it  has  no  parallel  except  in  that  remarkable 
monastic  order  founded  by  Ignatius  Loyola.  The  Jesuits,  or 
Society  of  Jesus,  had  ulterior  aims  never  dreamed  of  in  the 
philosophy  of  Methodist  Episcopacy ;  but  as  a  militant  system, 
designed  for  absolute  supremacy  over  men's  minds,  and  a  sub- 
ordination of  all  outlying  interests  to  a  great  central  force,  the 
likeness  is  most  striking.  The  ideal  of  this  system  is  in  Ezekiel's 
vision  of  a  "wheel  within  wheels  and  a  fire  infolding  itself." 
To  make  men  content  under  the  yoke  of  a  higher  estate,  they 
must  be  invested  with  authority  over  the  lower.  And  this  is  the 
philosophy  of  Methodist  Episcopacy.  Is  the  itinerant  subject  to 
the  elder?  and  the  elder  a  creature  of  the  bishop?  So  must  the 
class  leader  and  steward  and  trustee  be  subject  to  the  itinerant. 
But  is  there  no  way  of  preferment  for  the  voiceless  people?  Oh, 
yes !  unquestioning  obedience  is  the  way,  and  so  the  circle  is  com- 
pleted. Kecently  this  new  estate  has  been  recognized  in  the  old 
Methodisms.    But  it  must  be  conceded  an  anomaly.    It  is  not  in 


544  HISTOBY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


gear  with  a  system  to  which  it  is  not  native.  And  those  who 
were  honest  enough  to  resist  its  introduction  on  this  ground  were 
consistent.  As  it  is,  lay-delegation  must  go  farther,  and  with  its 
advance  the  machinery  must  be  modified  to  suit  the  new  genius 
of  things,  or  it  will  be  finally  cast  out  as  an  abnormal  element. 
A  spectator  at  the  late  General  Conference  must  have  been 
impressed  in  all  the  proceedings  with  the  very  general  and  no 
doubt  sincere  disposition  of  the  actors  and  speakers  to  glorify 
the  machine.  Has  Methodism  been  a  numerical  success?  The 
machine  did  it.  Can  the  Bishop  stand  in  the  centre  and  touch 
the  circumference?  It  is  the  perfection  of  the  machine.  Is 
heaven  peopled  with  the  redeemed  of  Wesley's  name?  All  honor 
to  the  machine.  Does  some  independent  mind  point  out  the 
danger  of  irresponsible  power?  The  cry  is,  disloyalty  to  the 
machine.  Does  some  devout  heart  sing,  "  It  is  the  Lord's  doing, 
and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes  "  ?  The  discord  is  hushed  amid 
cries  of,  "Long  live  the  machine."  No  one  impartially  examin- 
ing it  can  fail  to  accord  to  it  very  great  efficiency.  It  is  a  marvel 
of  success,  and,  adds  the  admirer,  "  ergo,  it  is  right  and  approved 
of  God."  Here  issue  is  joined.  The  argument  proves  too  much. 
For  if  success  is  an  infallible  sign  of  divine  approval,  what  of 
the  greater  success  of  Romanism  and  Islamism,  not  to  say  of 
Mormonism?  All  these  are  typical  systems,  having  a  centralized 
power,  and  the  cohesive  force  of  a  subordinating  discipline.  They 
point  to  British  Methodism  and  American  Xon-Episcopal  Metho- 
dism, and  the  argument  made  to  demonstrate  the  inferiority  of  a 
Presbyterial  form  of  government  on  the  same  score  of  success  or 
non-success.  But  this  will  not  do.  The  fallacy  was  crushed  to 
atoms  by  the  representative  of  British  Methodism,  Rev.  Dr.  Pope, 
before  this  very  General  Conference,  when  he  reminded  the  bishops 
and  brethren,  on  this  very  point,  that  American  Methodism  liad 
no  State  religion  to  contend  with,  and  no  preoccupied  country, 
as  had  British  Methodism  with  a  Presbyterial  system.  And  for 
the  Reform  Church  reply  may  be  made,  other  things  being  equal, 
compare  its  success  with  that  of  the  mother  Church  for  the  first 
twenty  or  forty  years  of  its  history,  and  the  showing  of  success 
makes  no  argument  for  Episcopal  Methodism. 

As  a  militant  system  it  must  be  cheerfully  accorded  the  palm, 
in  which  the  individual  is  nothing,  ?.nd  the  company  and  the 
regiment  and  the  division  and  the  army  corps,  with  its  single- 
headed  chief,  are  everything.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  with  the 
education  received  the  itinerant  juniors  echo  the  sentiments  of 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CHUBCH  ''MACHINE''  545 

their  seniors,  albeit  not  a  little  restless  in  latter  days  as  they 
chafe  under  the  self-imposed  yoke.  This  is  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  system.  Individuality  is  lost  in  the  machine;  and  the 
prizes  of  ambition,  however  laudable,  are  quickest  won  by  him 
who  soonest  sinks  his  personality  in  the  "  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church."  Bright  lights  beacon  her  century  history  despite  these 
facts,  but  all  of  them  self-asserting  men,  who  were  hindered  and 
not  helped  by  the  system.  It  is  its  genius  to  make  men,  but  they 
must  subordinate  all  positiveness  of  character  and  suffer  them- 
selves to  be  machine  made.  And  it  is  confessed  that  great  and 
good  men  have  been  created  by  it;  and  so  of  Komanism,  but  at 
what  loss  of  a  certain  nobility  of  independent  thinking  you  need 
but  turn  to  this  whilom  General  Conference  for  examples.  Noth- 
ing was  more  patent  than  the  policy  of  silence  or  subjection.  Not 
that  there  was  any  special  want  of  free  thinking  and  bold  speak- 
ing, but  it  was  a  study  to  mark  the  result  upon  the  college  of 
bishops,  and  those  ambitious  to  be  nearest  the  throne,  and  to 
note  the  occasional  interruptions  from  the  fawning  creatures  of 
the  body  with  flings  of  disloyalty  at  the  men  of  brave  utterance 
upon  such  questions  as  an  elective  eldership  and  lay-delegation. 
Speakers  felt  the  necessity  of  an  apologetic  style,  and  delivered 
their  opinions  with  an  ill-concealed  consciousness  that  they  faced 
an  invisible  presence  of  power,  to  be  propitiated  rather  than  pro- 
voked. There  need  be  no  denying  that  this  fear  has  some  whole- 
some uses;  forsooth,  it  is  the  balance-wheel  of  the  great  machine. 
This  is  a  simple  limning  of  its  salient  features,  and  a  challenge 
of  its  right  to  fulsome  worship,  and  a  denial  that  the  machine  is 
in  any  sense  an  essential  of  Methodism,  as  its  admirers  contend. 
There  are  not  wanting  those  who  have  bent  their  necks  to  the 
yoke  who  speak  patronizingly  of  other  Methodisms, — English, 
Irish,  American, —  as  out  of  the  succession;  as  in  some  way  to 
be  pitied  for  having  missed  being  a  "child  of  providence,"  to  use 
a  pet  phrase  of  the  machine  worshippers.  Pray,  was  there  no 
providence  in  the  other  Methodisms?  The  exclusive  claim  is  an 
absurdity,  and  the  divine  element  of  this  unexampled  soul-saving 
organization  is  overslaughed  and  minified  by  the  habit  of  super- 
exaltation  of  what  is  merely  incidental  —  the  accident  of  a  human 
mould.  ^ 

1  The  allegations  in  this  paragraph  are  so  broad  that  the  writer  believes  it 
well  to  fortify  them  by  an  unimpeachable  witness.    In  1876  Dr.  G.  K.  Crooks  of 
the  M.  E.  Church  issued  a  biography  of  his  lifelong  friend  in  the  same  ministry, 
Dr.  John  M'Clintock,  than  whom  few  brighter  lights  or  nobler  men  have  appeared 
VOL.  II  —  2n 


546 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  future  of  this  machine  will  continue  to  be  marked  with 
success,  numerical  and  material;  it  is  networking  the  globe;  its 
missionary  ventures  are  everywhere.  And  the  greatest  danger 
of  the  ecclesiasticism  is  in  this  direction.  The  overweening  con- 
fidence of  numbers,  wealth,  and  influence  can  be  neutralized  only 
by  a  modification  of  the  machine.  It  is  now  working  from  within 
as  well  as  from  without.  The  framework  of  the  original  model  is 
creaking.  It  is  being  seen  that  a  "  General  Superintendency  "  is 
no  longer  practicable,  and  the  districting  of  the  college  of  bishops 
is  called  for  by  an  imperious  necessity,  and  with  this  accom- 
plished the  presiding  eldership  will  be  modified  as  an  increasing 
excrescence,  and  a  lay-delegation  will  win  its  way  so  as  to  push 
it  aside  altogether.  The  Church  is  to  be  congratulated,  and  the 
modifying  force  in  the  working  of  a  liberal  system  in  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  can  afford  to  be  denied  recognition  as  such 
a  force,  and  bide  the  time  of  its  full  vindication,  not  of  its  fathers 
only,  but  of  the  system  itself  they  inaugurated.  The  genius  of 
the  hierarchic  model,  however,  can  never  be  changed  in  its 
entirety,  and  it  is  not  needful  for  practical  purposes  of  a  working 
Church  that  it  should  be,  and  liberal  Methodism  will  ever  remain 
so  far  diverse  as  to  make  successful  combination  impossible.  So 
that  what  the  Methodisms  of  broad  America  need  —  bating  the 

in  its  history.  While  yet  a  young  man  in  that  Church,  he  kept  a  journal,  from 
which,  under  date  of  January  17,  1839,  he  made  record :  "  There  is  too  much  pre- 
scription in  the  Methodist  Church,  and  there  is  too  much  proscription  for  indi- 
vidual opinions.  A  man  can  hardly  be  independent  with  any  hope  of  rising  in 
the  church.  This  state  of  things  causes  a  mean,  truckling  spirit  to  grow  up 
among  the  young  men,  which  in  a  great  degree  renders  them  intellectual  slaves  to 
a  few  not  very  intellectual  masters.  ...  '  The  spirit  of  power,  and  of  love,  and 
of  a  sound  mind '  is  incompatible  with  this  sort  of  mental  bondage,  and  sooner  or 
later  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  will  pay  the  penalty  of  this  encroachment 
upon  the  absolute  freedom  of  the  individual  mind,  by  storms  and  contentions,  if 
not  by  her  entire  disorganization  and  dissolution  unless  a  wiser  policy  be  struck 
out."  He  also  speaks  of  having  raked,  from  the  bookshelves  of  his  father,  the 
Wesleyan  Repository  of  1821-24,  and  says:  "I  suppose,  though  I  am  not  sure  of 
it,  that  the  publication  was  very  unpopular  with  the  Methodist  preachers  of  that 
time.  It  was  too  bold  entirely  —  attributed  too  little  infallibilitj- to  our  system. 
The  same  spirit  exists  to  this  day  to  a  considerable  extent."  His  vaticination  as 
to  the  ultimate  of  it  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  after  fifty  years,  at  this  writing  has 
not  come  to  pass,  therefore,  sa5's  an  advocate  of  the  system,  he  was  wrong  in  all 
his  premises.  Not  so.  He  simply  did  not  properly  estimate  the  force  of  intrenched 
and  entailed  power  —  the  habit  of  obedience  to  existing  things.  From  like  prem- 
ises for  a  century,  men  have  predicted  the  downfall  of  Romanism  as  a  logical 
sequence,  but  instead  it  grows  stronger  all  the  time.  Either  system  has  thousands 
of  admirers  and  adherents  ;  and  even  those  who  are  galled  by  the  shackles  cannot 
break  away  from  them,  so  powerful  are  the  influences  it  can  command  over  men, 
so  that  himself  and  his  biographer,  despite  their  convictions,  remained  in  its 
ministry,  hoping  to  reform  what  is  irreformable. 


FEDERATION,  FRATERNITY,  FORGIVENESS  547 

Union  in  Canada,  a  mere  province  in  space  and  numbers  on  a 
liberal  anti-hierarcliic  basis  —  is  not  Union,  meaning  thereby 
absorption  of  the  weaker  by  the  stronger,  but,  as  Bishop  Fitz- 
gerald of  the  Church  South  has  so  aptly  put  it,  it  needs  the  three 
F's,  which  he  interpreted  as  Federation,  Fraternity,  and  Forgive- 
ness. For  this  his  Church  is  ready,  and  it  will  never  probably 
be  ready  for  anything  else.  For  this  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  is  ready,  and  it  should  never  be  ready  for  anything  else. 
And  dreamers  who  may  suppose  otherwise,  if  not  warned  by  the 
failures  of  the  past  recorded  in  this  History,  and  the  damage 
wrought  the  Church  by  the  tentation,  will  be  warned,  if  ever 
officialism  in  it  enters  upon  another  illusive  scheme  of  "Union," 
and  should  even  succeed  in  arranging  preliminaries,  by  the 
churches  assuming  their  autonomy  as  never  before,  and  declining 
to  be  ecclesiastically  extinguished.  It  is  an  unwritten  fact  of 
the  futile  attempt  of  1866  to  unite  with  the  Church  South,  that 
those  who  moved  among  the  people  in  their  congregational 
capacity  could  not  fail  to  hear  the  undertone  of  protest,  "  If  sell- 
ing out  is  on  the  tapis,  we  propose  to  be  at  the  sale."  The  only 
thing  that  dreamers  of  corporate  Union  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  North  or  South,  can  hope  to  accomplish  in  its 
last  analysis  will  be  the  disintegration  of  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church.  It  is  a  siren  voice  and  should  never  again  be 
heeded. 

But  is  the  plan  of  the  three  F^s  practicable?  The  writer  con- 
fesses that  even  for  it  he  is  not  hopeful.  Federation  would  mean 
a  mutual  Council,  whose  object  and  authority  should  be  to  oversee 
all  missionary  work  of  the  respective  Methodisms  at  home  and 
abroad;  cooperation  in  the  foreign  field,  that  there  may  be  no 
waste  of  men  and  means.  It  would  mean  respect  for  each  other's 
autonomy,  so  that  rival  churches  should  no  longer  be  erected  in 
the  same  towns  and  villages.  It  would  mean  that  the  stronger 
organizations  should  help  the  weaker,  if  anything,  so  that  Fra- 
ternity should  be  a  reality  and  not  a  sham,  a  Christ-love  above  a 
church-love;  and  out  of  Federation  and  Fraternity  would  grow 
Forgiveness.  This  would  demand  the  absolute  abandonment  of 
historical  misstatements  about  each  other.  It  would  seem  strange 
to  some  readers  that  Bishop  Fitzgerald  should  have  made  this 
third  F  forgiveness,  but  any  one  impartially  reviewing  the  wrongs 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  officialism  by  them  in  1844-50,  and  again 
in  1865-70,  cannot  wonder  that  surcease  forever  of  all  such 
methods  of  Church  aggression  and  aggrandizement  was  desired. 


548 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFOBM 


Who  that  heard  it  —  and  the  writer  was  one  —  the  tearful,  and 
pathetic,  and  honest  appeal  of  Bishop  Foster  for  organic  Union, 
his  remarks  being  intended  specially  for  the  representatives  of  the 
Church  South,  in  the  Second  Ecumenical  Council  of  Methodists 
in  Washington,  D.  C,  in  1891  —  can  forget  the  answer,  massed 
in  a  single  sentence,  by  Dr.  Hoss,  editor  of  the  Nashville  Christian 
Advocate  at  the  time,  as  intimating  the  self-imposed  bar  to  such 
a  Union:  "Cease  your  manoeuvring!''  What  did  he  mean?  It 
needed  no  explanation  to  the  brethren  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  for  it  meant  that  the  official  efforts  to  undermine,  not 
by  direction,  perhaps,  but  by  indirection,  that  Church's  existence 
wherever  possible  in  the  Southern  states ;  the  failure  to  recognize 
its  work  as  sufficient  in  given  localities  for  gospel  evangelization, 
and  a  persistent  effort  to  occupy  territory  not  heretofore  supposed 
to  need  their  attention,  were  all  manoeuvres.  The  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  can  employ  the  same  language:  Cease  your 
manoeuvring.  Eecognize  what  the  Church  claims  to  be,  and  then 
Forgiveness  will  come  for  the  misdeeds  of  1827-30  and  onward; 
and  if  in  anything  it  can  be  made  clear  that  forgiveness  is  needed 
to  be  asked,  the  writer  at  least  will  not  be  slow  to  do  so.  But 
the  fact  remains  that  the  plan  of  the  three  F's,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  must  be  inaugurated  by  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  Will  it  do  so?  Can  it  be  importuned  to  do  so?  It  is 
not  probable;  for  they  have  nothing  to  gain  by  such  a  plan,  and 
may  have  something  to  lose.  An  unchecked  career  of  Church 
prosperity,  abundant  resources,  and  entire  independence  of  kin- 
dred Methodisms,  make  it  an  indifferent  question  with  them. 
In  its  whole  history  it  has  never  been  known  to  give  support  to 
any  measure  not  purely  denominational.  Every  interdenomina- 
tional measure,  —  the  latest  the  Christian  Endeavor  movement, 
though  safeguarded  in  a  principal  feature  of  its  pledge:  to  be 
loyal  to  the  denomination  of  which  the  local  society  may  form  a 
part, —  was  by  them  eschewed.  Xot  Rome  itself  holds  more 
tenaciously  to  an  exclusive  fidelity  to  its  own.  It  emblazons 
everywhere  their  slogan :  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America, —  "In  this  sign  conquer!  " 

There  was  so  much  fraternity  at  this  General  Conference  that 
its  Committee  on  Methodistic  Union  advanced  a  step,  and  the 
manifesto  was  now  not  so  much  "to  receive"  any  proposals  from 
other  Methodisms  —  which  of  course  estopped  anything  of  the 
kind,  though  the  General  Conference  of  1872  did  not  seem  to  be 
witful  enough  to  see  it.    Now  they  expressed  themselves  willing 


A  GRACEFUL  AMENDING  ACT 


649 


"  to  confer  "  with  any  such  body,  which  made  it  reasonably  pos- 
sible ;  but  nothing  came  of  the  advance ;  it  was,  in  fact,  now  too 
late.  The  venerable  liev.  Thomas  McCormick,  of  the  Baltimore 
Expelled  preachers  of  1827,  discussing  these  issues  in  the  official 
paper  not  many  months  before,  while  an  ardent  friend  of  Union 
under  mutual  concessions,  clearly  saw  what  is  now  more  than 
ever  manifest,  that  a  proposition  of  the  kind  in  any  other  form 
cannot  be  entertained,  and  therefore  cogently  said,  "  I  think  that 
while  there  is  a  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  there  should  also 
be  a  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  this  country."  It  is  an 
interesting  episode  in  this  General  Conference  that  this  venerable 
minister  was  publicly  introduced  to  it  from  the  platform,  by  the 
presiding  Bishop  Janes,  as  a  Methodist  Protestant  minister  and 
the  last  surviving  pall-bearer  of  Bishop  Asbury's  funeral;  it  was 
indeed  a  stretching  of  fraternal  hands  across  a  gap  of  nearly  fifty 
years  since  his  expulsion  for  Eeform  principles,  and  the  Con- 
ference at  once  honored  itself  and  Thomas  McCormick. 

The  fathers  were  rapidly  falling  asleep,  and  as  the  years  ran 
on  they  grew  fewer  in  number.  John  Whetstone  was  born 
October  25,  1788,  deceased  August  10,  1874.  He  was  an  original 
Eeformer  of  Cincinnati.  He  left  bequests  of  $11,000  to  various 
Church  interests.  True  as  steel,  and  devoted  as  true,  his  memory 
must  not  perish.  William  Peebles,  Esq.,  is  on  record  June  3, 
1875,  aged  eighty-eight  years.  He  was  an  original  Eeformer  of 
Tennessee  and  southwestern  Virginia,  always  faithful,  his  last 
residence  being  some  fifty  miles  from  Abingdon,  Va.,  yet  it  being 
the  nearest  new  church,  he  deposited  his  membership  there.  He 
was  the  father  of  Dr.  M.  T.  Peebles,  still  true  to  his  father's 
Church  and  his  own  convictions.  Eev.  Zachariah  Eagan  de- 
parted this  life  November  27,  1875.  He  was  born  in  Westmore- 
land County,  Pa.,  November  27,  1804,  being  exactly  seventy-one 
years  of  age.  Converted  at  eighteen,  he  united  with  the  old 
Church,  and  was  licensed  to  preach  in  1825,  and  joined  the  Pitts- 
burgh Conference,  having  for  fellow-members  such  stanch  Ee- 
formers  as  Asa  Shinn,  George  Brown,  and  H.  B.  Bascom.  After 
serving  three  years,  his  health  failed  and  he  retired.  In  1829 
he  united  with  the  Ohio  Conference  of  the  new  Church,  and  con- 
tinued in  the  ranks  until  1850,  but  from  1856  to  1861  was  assigned 
to  labor  with  J.  S.  Thrap  as  an  assistant,  and  others,  in  the 
Muskingum  Conference.  During  this  time  he  published  a  weekly 
periodical,  the  True  American.  He  accepted  the  chaplaincy  of 
the  25th  Ohio  Volunteers,  and  in  1863  was  appointed  Hospital 


550  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


Chaplain  in  the  regular  army,  and  served  to  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War ;  and  in  1868  accepted  a  chaplaincy  in  the  regular  army,  was 
stationed  at  Fort  Russell,  and  held  the  position  until  death.  As 
a  Reformer  he  was  bold  and  fearless,  and  able  as  bold,  both  as 
speaker  and  writer.  Physically  he  was  of  majestic  bearing,  tall 
and  straight  and  well  developed.  He  was  a  representative  to 
General  Conference  and  President  of  his  Annual  Conference. 
His  death  was  peaceful;  his  last  words,  addressed  to  his  wife: 
"It  is  all  right,  Martha,  all  right!  " 

Cornelius  Springer  finished  his  course  in  peace,  August  17, 
1875,  in  the  eighty-fifth  year  of  his  age  and  the  fifty-ninth  of  his 
ministry.  He  was  born  of  Swedish  parents,  near  Wilmington, 
Del.,  December  29,  1790.  In  1798  he  removed  with  his  parents  to 
Virginia,  near  where  Wheeling  now  stands.  Converted  in  1808, 
he  united  with  the  old  Church.  He  served  in  the  War  of  1812, 
as  a  lieutenant,  and  at  its  close  resumed  his  profession  of  teacher, 
but  in  1816  entered  the  Ohio  Conference  and  labored  for  about 
fourteen  years.  He  was  one  of  the  first  men  in  the  West  to 
advocate  Methodist  Reform,  and  in  1822  became  a  contributor  to 
the  Wesleyan  Repository,  writing  under  the  signature  of  "Cin- 
cinnatus,"  through  the  years  1822-24.  The  expulsion  of  Dennis 
B.  Dorsey  settled  his  convictions  that  a  new  Church  was  inevi- 
table, and  though  reluctant  to  leave  the  old  he  felt  himself  bound 
in  honor  to  stand  by  the  expelled  for  opinions'  sake.  Therefore 
on  the  7th  of  March,  1829,  he  withdrew  from  the  old  Church,  and 
assisted  in  the  organization  of  the  Ohio  Conference.  He  was 
active  in  forming  new  churches.  In  1830,  he  was  President  of 
the  Conference,  and  in  1831  stationed  in  Cincinnati,  and  became 
editor  of  the  Metlwdist  Correspondent,  and  conducted  it  as  long  as 
it  was  published,  or  for  four  years.  In  1837  he  was  President  of 
the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  and  in  July,  1839,  edited  and  pub- 
lished, under  the  patronage  of  the  Pittsburgh  and  Ohio  Con- 
ferences, the  Western  Recorder,  which  he  conducted  with  marked 
ability  for  six  years,  supporting  it  largely  out  of  his  own  funds. 
His  eyesight  failing,  he  relinquished  the  position  and  retired  to 
Meadow  Farm  in  private  life.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Convention 
of  1830,  and  of  a  number  of  the  General  Conferences,  and  for  two 
years  served  in  the  legislature  of  Ohio.  Phj'sically  he  was  of  giant 
stature,  and,  like  McCaine,  stood  above  most  men  nearly  a  head 
and  shoulders.  As  a  preacher  he  was  intellectually  forcible,  but 
it  was  as  a  writer  and  editor  and  supporter  of  the  enterprises  of 
the  Church  with  abundant  liberality  that  he  is  best  known.  He 


MEMOIR  OF  CORNELIUS  SPRINGER 


551 


was  thrice  married,  his  last  wife  being  a  daughter  of  Eev.  Israel 
Thrapp.  For  eighteen  years  she  watched  over  him  with  wifely 
care  and  assiduity,  until  he  finished  his  course.  Obsequies  were 
by  Drs.  Scott  and  Cowl,  and  a  memorial  discourse  before  the 
Muskingum  Conference  by  Alexander  Clark.  His  widow,  since 
married,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Springer  Oliver,  belongs  to  a  family  of 
preachers,  her  paternal  grandfather  and  father  and  one  brother, 
J.  A.  Thrapp,  and  an  uncle,  J.  S.  Thrap,  being  preachers  in  the 
Church.  She  has  demonstrated  her  right  to  preach  the  gospel  by 
fine  abilities  and  successful  work,  and  continues  to  this  day  in 
her  favorite  employment,  a  worthy  successor  of  Mrs.  Hannah 
Reeves  as  a  woman  preacher. 

About  1875  the  Methodist  Protestant  Magazine  was  inaugurated 
by  President  D.  S.  Stephens  of  Adrian  College,  a  monthly  of  fair 
form  and  appearance,  and  it  was  continued  for  a  series  of  years 
with  J.  F.  Cowan  as  associate.  The  editor  of  the  Methodist 
Recorder,  after  his  return  from  fraternal  visitations  to  the  British 
Conferences,  devoted  himself  with  that  unstinting  energy  charac- 
teristic of  him  to  the  publications  of  the  brethren  West,  Our 
Morning  Guide  receiving  great  attention.  For  the  International 
Lessons  they  had  unofficially  adopted  the  Berean  system  of  the 
old  Church,  and  some  eleven  thousand  copies  were  circulated.  A 
department  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  had  from  1874  been  given 
to  the  lessons,  with  original  comments  furnished  by  Dr.  Webster, 
Rev.  H.  C.  Cushing,  and  others,  and  a  need  of  this  kind  grew  up, 
which  was  subsequently  met.  In  May,  1876,  the  Commissioners, 
as  authorized,  issued  the  call  for  the  Conventions  of  the  two 
Churches  for  Baltimore,  in  May,  1877,  and  as  the  Conferences 
assembled  the  action  was  approved  or  disapproved  and  representa- 
tives elected.  Mrs.  Letitia,  widow  of  John  Coates,  departed  this 
life  in  Baltimore,  August  25,  1876,  and  at  her  death  his  will  be- 
queathed ^3000  to  West  Baltimore  station,  and  ^3000  to  its  Sab- 
bath-school to  replenish  the  library  perpetually,  and  $4000  to  the 
Superannuated  Society  of  the  Maryland  Conference.  The  Metho- 
dist Missionary  was  published  for  some  time  at  Allegheny,  Pa., 
by  T.  H.  Colhouer.  The  Protestant  was  issued  from  Greenville, 
Tenn.,  in  the  interest  of  the  Virginia  Conference,  by  Eev.  J.  G. 
J ohnson.  These  were  monthlies  with  a  life  of  a  few  years  each. 
The  Publishing  House  of  the  Church  South,  at  Nashville,  Tenn., 
in  1876,  was  discovered  to  be  in  a  perilous  financial  condition. 
Investigation  showed  that  the  Agent  had  managed  its  affairs 
loosely  and  speculated  with  its  means  in  hope  of  personal  advan- 


552  BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


tage.  Appeal  was  made  to  the  Church,  and  a  considerable  sum 
contributed  to  save  it  from  menacing  disaster.  The  clerical 
speculator  was  removed,  but  action  against  him  was  suppressed. 
Pity  took  the  place  of  justice,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  misap- 
plications of  large  sums  by  the  Agent  of  the  New  York  Book 
Concern  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  efforts  were  made 
to  condone  the  malfeasance  and  conceal  the  true  condition  of 
affairs.  Since  both  occurrences  the  lay-element  has  been  partially 
introduced  as  guards  to  better  business  management.^  Nothing 
is  more  anomalous  in  either  Church  than  the  liberal  sums  con- 
tributed by  the  laity,  running  up  into  millions,  with  the  jealous 
control  of  it  always  claimed  by  the  ministry. 

1  The  Book  Committee  of  the  M.  E.  Church  now,  and  for  some  years  past, 
consists  of  twelve  members,  — six  ministers  and  six  laymen,  —  located  in  different 
sections  of  the  Church  territorially,  but  meeting  as  a  committee  once  a  year  in 
New  York.  It  is  one  of  the  concessions  wrung  from  the  ministry  by  disaster  and 
wisdom. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


Obituaries  of  Reformers ;  Rev.  A.  G.  Brewer  and  others  —  Preparation  for  the 
General  Convention  of  the  two  Churches  in  Baltimore  as  it  was  now  assured  — 
Assembly  of  the  Methodist  and  the  Methodist  Protestant  Conventions  May  11, 
1877 ;  roster  of  members  in  each  and  preliminary  business;  L.  W.  Bates,  Presi- 
dent of  the  latter,  and  J.  J.  Smith  of  the  former ;  a  committee  of  seven  from 
each  body  jointly  to  formulate  a  basis  of  Union;  its  numerous  sessions;  the 
basis  as  finally  presented  and  accepted  by  the  two  Conventions  by  a  nearly 
unanimous  vote  in  either  —  First  day's  proceedings  of  the  united  body ;  officers 
and  committees;  a  new  Constitution  and  Discipline  agreed  to  ;  Book  Concerns 
and  Church  papers  left  undisturbed  until  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  called 
for  May,  1880,  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa. ;  unwritten  history  of  the  hymn-book  ques- 
tion in  detail ;  Pastoral  Address;  representatives  to  the  Ecumenical  Conference 
of  Methodists  in  London,  1881,  appointed;  day  of  thanksgiving;  photograph  of 
the  entire  body ;  statistics  of  the  reunited  Church. 

Eev.  Amon  Richards,  a  local  minister  of  Maryland,  and  an 
early  Reformer,  deceased  July  13,  1876.  He  had  been  made  an 
honorary  member  of  the  Annual  Conference  in  recognition  of  his 
services  and  fidelity  to  Reform.  He  was  in  his  eighty-ninth  year. 
Rev.  David  Crall,  deceased  September  12,  1876,  born  February 
5,  1798.  He  was  an  original  Reformer  and  united  with  the  Mary- 
land Conference  at  its  first  session,  in  April,  1829.  He  afterward 
removed  to  Ohio,  where  he  served  the  Church,  and  departed  this 
life.  John  Long  of  Pleasant  Valley,  Carroll  County,  0.,  de- 
ceased October  17,  1876,  in  his  eighty-first  year.  He  was  an 
original  Reformer  and  worthy  of  this  mention.  Peter  M.  Pierson 
of  Washington,  D.  C,  an  original  Reformer  and  exemplary  Chris- 
tian, departed  this  life  April  23,  1877,  in  his  eighty-second  year. 
Rev.  D.  E.  Reese,  the  last  of  the  four  Reese  brothers  of  the 
Maryland  Conference,  deceased  April  23,  1877,  aged  sixty-six 
years.  He  was  identified  with  it  from  the  beginning  and  honored 
as  its  President,  as  well  as  of  General  Conferences  and  Conven- 
tions of  the  Church  as  a  member.  (See  Colhouer's  "Founders," 
pp.  108-113.)  Rev.  A.  G.  Brewer,  April  23,  1877.  He  was 
born  in  Monmouth  County,  N.  J.,  December  5,  1795,  of  Quaker 
parents.  He  was  converted  in  his  twenty-first  year,  and  was 
remarkably  successful  in  winning  his  quondam  Friends  to  an 

553 


554 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


experiential  knowledge  of  Christ.  He  joined  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  and,  in  connection  with  the  wonderful  revivalist, 
Charles  Pitman,  had  an  evangelistic  bout  with  an  infidel  military- 
company,  who  fired  their  cannon  and  discharged  fusillades  of 
musketry  while  these  brethren  held  divine  service ;  but  the  grace 
of  God  conquered.  He  was  of  an  inquiring  mind  and  indepen- 
dent views,  so  that  the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  bishops  in 
1820  so  disgusted  him  that  he  withdrew  and,  in  1821,  united  with 
the  Stillwell  "  Methodist  Society "  of  New  York.  His  history 
has  already  been  anticipated  down  to  his  active  participation  in 
Eeform  in  Georgia  from  1827.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion of  1830,  organized  the  church  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  and  the 
South  Carolina  Conference,  in  December,  1839.  He  taught  school 
for  his  support  when  other  resources  failed,  and  about  this  time 
he  was  offered  a  salary  of  $2000  if  he  would  continue  Principal 
of  the  Academy  at  Mechanicsville,  S.  C. ;  but  having  relieved 
himself  of  debt,  with  the  heroism  of  so  many  of  the  early  Reform 
ministers,  he  declined  the  tempting  offer  and  took  to  the  ill-com- 
pensated labors  of  an  itinerant  missionary  in  Georgia.  With 
Elisha  Lott,  he  was  the  Apostle  of  Non-Episcopal  Methodism  in 
the  South,  incessantly  active,  counting  no  sacrifice  too  great  for 
the  cause  he  loved.  His  connection  with  the  Southern  Olive  Tree, 
for  a  number  of  years  the  local  paper  of  Georgia  and  Alabama,  as 
editor  and  publisher,  gained  him  his  financial  ruin.  He  served 
as  chaplain  in  the  Confederate  army,  and,  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
in  his  seventieth  year,  he  found  himself  broken  in  health.  He 
departed  this  life  at  the  residence  of  his  son.  Rev.  G.  E.  Brewer, 
in  Alabama,  peacefully.    All  honor  to  his  memory. 

December  20,  1876,  official  announcement  was  made,  through 
the  Methodist  Protestant,  Baltimore,  that  twenty  Annual  Confer- 
ences of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  had  voted  affirmatively 
in  calling  a  Convention,  and  four  in  the  negative,  to  wit:  North 
Carolina,  by  a  vote  of  twenty-nine  to  twenty-six,  Colorado 
(Texas),  Mississippi,  and  North  Mississippi.  All  of  them,  how- 
ever, elected  representatives.  In  North  Carolina  the  situation 
was  complicated  by  the  presence  among  them  of  a  mongrel  West- 
ern and  Eastern  Conference  of  the  "Methodist"  Church,  both 
small  in  numbers  and  smaller  in  local  influence.  The  North 
Carolina  Conference  refused  to  go  into  the  Union  unless  control 
of  these  factious  bodies  was  given  to  them  as  to  which  of  their 
number  should  be  recognized  by  them,  while  these  "  Conferences  " 
demanded  equal  terms  and  privileges.    The  disposition  of  the 


METHODIST  CONVENTION  OF  1877 


555 


matter  has  already  been  recited  earlier  in  this  History  —  it  does 
not  deserve  further  mention.  There  were,  also,  other  causes  of 
opposition  in  North  Carolina  to  the  proposed  Union.  About  the 
same  time  it  had  been  announced,  through  the  Methodist  Recorder 
of  Pittsburgh,  that  all  the  Annual  Conferences  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  twenty-one  in  number,  had  agreed  to  the  call, — sev- 
eral of  their  Conferences  having  been  merged,  and  twenty-two 
of  them  having  elected  representatives  on  the  basis  of  union. 
Arrangements  were  matured  for  the  entertainment  of  the  two 
Conventions  in  Baltimore,  and,  as  the  numbers  aggregated 
several  hundred,  a  considerable  sum  of  money  was  raised  for 
boarding  facilities,  when  private  hospitality  in  the  churches 
failed  to  provide  for  the  representatives.  It  was  satisfactorily 
accomplished,  after  great  labor,  by  the  Committee,  the  West  Bal- 
timore church,  Greene  and  Lombard  streets,  being  assigned  the 
Methodist  Convention,  and  the  brethren,  as  far  as  possible, 
massed  in  that  end  of  the  city ;  and  the  East  Baltimore  church, 
corner  of  Fayette  and  Aisquith  streets,  being  assigned  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Convention,  and  the  brethren,  as  far  as  possible, 
massed  in  that  end  of  the  city.  Expectation  was  high,  and  fore- 
bodings, if  any,  were  kept  in  abeyance. 

Pursuant  to  the  call  already  noticed,  the  General  Convention  of 
the  Methodist  Church  met  in  the  West  Baltimore  church,  Friday, 
May  11,  1877,  at  10  a.m.  It  was  called  to  order  by  Eev.  John 
Burns,  Chairman  of  the  Union  Commissioners,  and  he  was  chosen 
President  j9?'o  tern.,  after  religious  services  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Smith, 
and  G.  B.  McElroy,  Secretary.  The  following  representatives  were 
declared  elected :  — 


Oregon  Mission 


Ministers 
W.  F.  Westi 


Laymen 


Minnesota 


L.  A.  Bliss  1 


W.  G.  Reedi 


Western  North  Carolina 


W.  M.  Kerri 


W.  H.  Bradley  1 


Eastern  North  Carolina 


Ike  J.  Yorki 


A.  E.  Holtoni 


Nebraska 


E.  T.  Hudson 


Wm.  McKenneyi 


1  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METnODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
E.  A.  Wheat 

G.  Williams 


J.  J.  Smith 
Mark  Staples 


D.  Young 1 
S.  Clark  1 


Richard  Wright  i 
A.  L.  Reynolds 


T.  J.  Sheppard 


P.  J.  Strong 
J.  M.  Mayall 


G.  B.  McEboy 
J.  F.  Kellogg 


N.  R.  Swift 
J.  H.  Hogan 


T.  B.  Appleget 
E.  B.  Stultz 


J.  Kost 

F.  H.  Chase  1 


E.  S.  Brown 
J.  Selby 
W.  Remshurg 
W.  Huddleston 


Genesee 

Laymen 
Martin  Webster  ^ 

North  Missouri 

J.  W.  Antrim  i 

New  York 

Calvin  Tompkins  i 

B.  F.  Swingle 

Kansas 

J.  Rineharti 
J.  S.  Mitchell  1 

South  Illinois 

John  Puleston 

C.  Link 

Missouri 

J.  W.  Bushi 

North  Illinois 

P.  F.  Remsburg 

A.  Bortoni 

Michigan 

H.  O.  Sternberg  I 
L.  Morrelli 

Onondaga 

P.  Weaver 

B.  G.  Swift 

New  Jersey 

R.  H.  Turner 
J.  A.  Scheible 

West  Michigan 

T.  Gilkes 
E.  Williams 

Iowa 

W.  Workman  1 
J.  N.  Shedenhelm 
T.  Weidman 
S.  RusseUi 


1  Absent. 


METHODIST  CONVENTION  OF  1877  557 


Ministers 
R.  Rose 
A.  H.  Bassett 
C.  S.  Evans 
W.  R.  Parsons 
J.  J.  White 

H.  Stackhouse 
T.  E.  Lancaster 
J.  H.  Luse 
S.  H.  Flood 
S.  M.  Lowden 


Ohio 

Laymen 
G.  W.  Kent 
T.  J.  Finch 
G.  B.  Hamilton 
T.  Douglass 
D.  Dunbar 

Indiana 

J.  J.  Amosi 
P.  W.  Patterson  1 
D.  V.  Buskirki 
N.  H.  Jones  1 
A.  D.  Whitford 


Pittsburgh 


H.  Palmer 
John  Scott 
Wm.  Collier 
A.  Clark 
T.  H.  Colhouer 
G.  G.  Westfall 
P.  T.  Laishley 

John  Bums 
D.  Trueman 
J.  A.  Thrapp 
W.  Hastings 
O.  V.  W.  Chandler 
Joel  S.  Thrap 
G.  W.  Hissey 
J.  H.  Hamilton 
F.  A.  Brown 


John  Riggs  ^ 
F.  G.  Tyreei 


Muskingum 


Kentucky 


F.  H.  Pierpont 
W.  J.  Troth 
J.  I.  Robinson 

F.  H.  Collier  1 
S.  J.  Fox 

A.  Harper 

G.  W.  Pogue 

H.  E.  H.  Hartsock 
William  Gray 

J.  H.  Carr 
V.  J.  Powelson 
W.  R.  Peters  1 
John  W.  Scott 
James  Brown 
William  Porter 
Ragan  Scott 

E.  H.  Coxi 
L.  F.  Tyreei 


Thirty-three  were  absent  out  of  one  hundred  and  eleven,  show- 
ing seventy-eight  present. 

A  committee  of  one  from  each  Annual  Conference  was  ap- 
pointed to  nominate  permanent  officers.  Also  a  committee  on 
the  action  of  the  several  Annual  Conferences  as  to  the  call  for 
this  Convention.  A  number  of  brethren  were  invited  to  honorary 
seats.  Afternoon  session  held  at  3  o'clock.  The  committee  to 
nominate  permanent  officers  reported :  J.  J.  Smith  for  President, 


1  Absent. 


568 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


G.  B.  McElroy,  Secretary,  and  W.  H.  Jordan  and  C.  S.  Evans, 
assistants.  It  was  adopted.  The  committee  on  action  of  the 
Annual  Conferences  reported,  rehearsing  the  steps  preliminary 
to  the  Convention,  and  that  it  was  "invested  with  full  con- 
ventional powers  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  the  Union  of  the 
Methodist  and  the  Methodist  Protestant  Churches,  on  the  Basis 
as  published,  and  to  complete  the  same."  It  was  agreed  that  the 
order  for  the  next  day  should  be  to  consider  the  Basis  of  Union. 
Adjourned. 

Pursuant  to  the  call  already  noticed,  the  General  Convention 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  convened  at  East  Baltimore 
station  on  Friday,  May  11,  1877,  at  10  a.m.,  and  was  organized 
by  calling  Hon.  B.  S.  Bibb  to  the  chair,  and  appointing  M.  L. 
Barnett  and  R.  H.Wills,  Secretaries.  The  following  represent- 
atives were  declared  elected :  — 


Pennsylvania 


Ministers 
J.  K.  Helmbold 


Laymen 
John  Fern  i 


Maryland 


L.  W.  Bates 
J.  K.  Nichols 
J.  J.  Murray 


W.  S.  Hammond 
E.  J.  Drinkhouse 
B.  F.  Benson 


David  Wilson 
T.  D.  Valiant 
R.  S.  Norris 
J.  T.  Murray 
D.  W.  Bates 


S.  B.  Southerland 


J.  W,  Hering 
C.  W.  Button 
O.  Hammond 
J.  W.  Thompson 
J.  G.  Clark 
H.  F.  ZollickofEer 
W.  B.  Usilton 
R.  S.  Griffith 
Gaven  Spence 
S.  S.  Ewell 
John  Smith 
E.  B.  Bates 


Virginia 


M.  J.  Langhomei 
J.  G.  Johnson  i 


G.  R.  Barr 


W.  E.  Jones 
R.  S.  Lanei 
M.  T.  Peebles! 


West  Virginia 


W.  M.  Betts 
O.  Lowther 
H.  P.  F.  King 
J.  J.  Mason 


George  Nestor 


J,  Morris 
J  H.  Curry 
P.  Donly 
W.  Vandervort 
W.  Mearns 


1  Absent. 


METHODIST  PROTESTANT  CONVENTION  OF  1877  559 


Ministers 
M.  L.  Barnett 
G.  W.  Barrett 
E.  J.  Wilson 
B.  Stout 


W.  H.  Wills 
John  Paris 
J.  G.  Whitfield 
T.  H.  Pegram 
J.  H.  Gilbreath 
A.  W,  Lineberry 
J.  L.  Michaux 
R.  H.  Wills 
G.  E.  Hunt 


West  Virginia  (continued) 

Laymen 

C.  P.  Hudson 
W.  J.  Lowtheri 

D.  Bassel 
R.  Maxwell! 

North  Carolina 

L.  W.  Batchelor 
J.  M.  Hadley 
J.  F.  Harris 
S.  V.  Pickens 
J.  C.  Roberts 
J.  E.  Hunter 
F.  H.  Whitaker 
J.  A.  Grayi 
S.  S.  Norman  1 


C.  McSmith  i 


South  Carolina 


L.  Yarboroughi 


F.  H,  M.  Henderson 
E.  Morris  1 


Georgia 


W.  D.  Mitchell 
C.  L.  Bowie  1 


L.  L.  Hilli 
A.  G.  Grove  i 


Alabama 


B.  S.  Bibb 
W.  G.  Little  1 


E.  Redi 


L.  J.  Hubbard  1 


Mississippi 

Wesley  B.  Hance  ^ 
North  Mississippi 


B.  F.  Duggan 


Tennessee 


Wm.  Collins 


J.  J.  Smith  1 


T.  Leach  1 


West  Tennessee 

S.  O.  Hooper 

North  Arkansas 

W.  Irvini 


Arkansas  and  Louisiana 


J.  M.  P.  Hickerson 
J.  W.  Harper  1 


G.  M.  Adamson 
W.  F.  Wallace  i 


1  Absent. 


560  mSTOET  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Texas 


Ministers 
J.  S.  York 


Laymen 
James  Morris  ^ 


Colorado  (Texas) 


E.  M.  Oweni 


J.  J.  Mabryi 


McCaine  (Texas) 


G.  P.  Miller  1 


N.  G.  Ferguson  1 


Illinois  and  Des  Moines 


J.  E.  Darby 


N.  Davis  1 


South  Illinois 


E.  C.  G.  Nickensi 


Samuel  Dowdy  i 


Indiana 


G.  W.  Boxell 


W.  A.  Quick 


Thirty-two  were  absent  out  of  one  hundred  and  three,  showing 
seventy-one  present. 

The  Convention  proceeded  to  elect  permanent  officers,  resulting 
in  L.  W.  Bates,  President,  and  M.  L.  Barnett  and  R.  H.  Wills, 
Secretaries.  After  routine  business  and  notification  to  the 
Methodist  Convention  of  its  hours  of  meeting,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 

Methodist  Convention,  second  day,  May  12.  The  order  of  the 
day  postponed,  and  a  committee  of  conference  ordered  to  confer 
with  a  like  committee  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Convention 
on  the  Basis  of  Union;  four  ministers  and  three  laymen.  The 
following  were  elected:  S.  M.  Lowden,  J.  Burns,  G.  G.  Westfall, 
E.  A.  Wheat,  T.  J.  Finch,  P.  F.  Eemsburg,  and  A.  Harper. 
Notice  was  given  to  the  other  Convention  with  a  request  that  a 
similar  committee  be  appointed.  The  venerable  Rev.  Thomas 
McCormick  and  Rev.  Dr.  Augustus  Webster  were  introduced,  and, 
after  historical  allusions  by  A.  H.  Bassett,  they  addressed  the 
Convention  in  interesting  and  feeling  remarks.  At  the  afternoon 
session  W.  R.  Parsons  presided,  in  the  absence  of  the  President. 
A  communication  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Convention 
announced  that  a  committee  of  seven  for  conference  had  been 
appointed  by  it.  The  Convention  adjourned.  In  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Convention,  second  day,  May  12,  S.  B.  Southerland, 
of  the  Joint  Commission  on  Basis  of  Union,  reported  its  action, 


1  Absent. 


BUSINESS  OF  THE  CONVENTIONS 


561 


and  the  call  of  this  Convention  to  consummate  the  Union.  A 
committee  of  conference  was  appointed,  consisting  of  J.  K. 
Nichols,  H.  F.  Zollickolfer,  B.  S.  Bibb,  W.  H.  Wills,  J.  M.  P. 
Hickei'son,  G.  R.  Barr,  and  W.  Mearns.  The  Convention 
adjourned. 

Metliodist  Convention,  third  day.  May  14.  A  verbal  report 
of  the  Committee  of  Conference  was  made  by  J.  H.  Hamilton. 
Afternoon  session,  a  communication  from  the  General  Confer- 
ence, Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  in  relation  to  an  Ecu- 
menical Conference  of  Methodists,  was  received  and  referred  to  a 
committee.  Resolutions  of  thanks  were  passed  for  the  welcome 
and  hospitality  received  in  Baltimore.  The  Convention  ad- 
journed. ]\Iethodist  Protestant  Convention,  third  day,  May  14, 
the  report  of  the  Commissioners  on  Union  was  referred  to  the 
Committee  of  Conference,  and  a  paper  by  J.  T.  Murray  defined 
that  the  Convention  had  power  over  the  Constitution  upon  the 
Basis  of  Union.  Afternoon  session,  official  announcement  of  the 
Convention  of  1877  was  made  by  E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  showing  that 
twenty  Conferences  had  voted  for,  and  four  against,  a  Conven- 
tion; but  all  had  elected  representatives.  The  Convention 
adjourned. 

The  Methodist  Convention,  fourth  day.  May  15,  resolutions 
were  passed  commending  Bassett's  "History  of  the  Church," 
and  requesting  its  publication.  Afternoon  session,  the  proposal 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  for  an  Ecumenical  Con- 
ference of  Methodists  was  approved,  and  a  committee  appointed 
to  carry  out  the  purpose.  Afternoon  session,  the  Committee  of 
Conference,  consisting  of  seven  members  from  each  Convention, 
made  their  report  as  follows :  — 

To  the  General  Convention  of  the  Methodist  Church,  in  the  City  of  Baltimore 

assembled :  — 

We,  the  Joint  Committee  of  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  and  of  the  Methodist  Church,  would  most  respectfully  submit  the 
following  report  as  the  result  of  our  deliberations  :  — 

Besolved  1.  That  the  Basis  of  Union  agreed  upon  by  the  Joint  Commission 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  Methodist  Churches,  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  be 
adopted,  and  that  we  interpret  that  Basis  of  Union  on  the  condition  of  re- 
ceiving members  into  the  Church  to  be  substantially  the  same  as  is  now  in 
the  New  Edition  of  the  Methodist  Book  of  Discipline  —  the  third  item,  rela- 
tive to  children,  having  been  inadvertently  omitted  in  the  published  Basis  of 
Union. 

Besolved  2.  That  the  matter  of  suffrage  and  eligibility  to  office  be  left  to 
the  Annual  Conferences  respectively,  —  Provided,  That  each  Annual  Confer- 

VOL.  II  —  2  o 


562 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ence  shall  be  entitled  to  representation  on  the  same  ratio,  in  the  General 
Conference  :  And  provided,  That  no  rule  shall  be  passed  which  shall  infringe 
the  right  of  suffrage  or  eligibility  to  oflBce. 

Resolved  3.  That  this  Joint  Committee  of  Conference  recommend  to  the 
General  Convention  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  to  the  General 
Convention  of  the  Methodist  Church,  now  in  session,  the  immediate  Organic 
Union  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  Methodist  Churches  —  upon  the  Basis 
of  Union  set  forth  in  this  report. 

All  of  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 


Baltimore,  Md.,  May  15,  1877. 

It  was  signed  by  all  the  members  of  the  Joint  Committee,  but 
S.  M.  Lowden  dissented  to  the  item  on  suffrage,  and  W.  H.  Wills 
reserved  for  North  Carolina  the  right  to  change  position  if  the 
Joint  Convention  made  no  provision  for  the  protection  of  its  Con- 
ference against  the  brethren  claiming  to  be  organized  as  "  Metho- 
dist "  Conferences  within  the  territory.  The  report  was  adopted 
with  unanimity,  and  G.  G.  Westfall  was  designated  to  inform  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Convention  of  their  action.  The  Methodist 
Protestant  Convention,  fourth  day,  May  15,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse 
presented  a  communication  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
proposing  an  Ecumenical  Conference  of  Methodists.  It  was 
referred  to  a  special  committee,  to  be  hereafter  appointed.  After- 
noon session,  J.  K.  Nichols  presented  the  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Conference,  which  was  read  and  adopted  by  items, 
pending  which  the  messenger  from  the  Methodist  Convention 
arrived  and  announced  that  they  had  agreed  to  the  report  of  the 
Joint  Committee.  The  Convention  adjourned  with  the  doxology, 
and  the  benediction  by  G.  G.  Westfall. 

Tlie  Methodist  Convention,  fifth  day,  May  16,  T.  B.  Appleget 
offered  a  resolution  that  the  Convention  is  ready  to  meet  our 
brethren  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  General  Conven- 
tion on  the  basis  and  plan  agreed  to,  etc.  It  was  deferred  until 
the  action  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Convention  could  be  ascer- 
tained. Afternoon  session,  tlie  following  paper  was  adopted,  as 
offered  by  J.  S.  Thrap:  "That  in  the  consummation  of  the  union 
of  the  Methodist  and  Methodist  Protestant  Churches,  the  bodies, 


John  Burns,  Chairman. 


J.  M.  P.  HiCKERSON,  Secretary. 


W.  H.  Wills, 
B.  S.  Bibb, 
E.  A.  Wheat, 

P.  F.  RE3ISBURG, 

W.  Mearns, 

H.  F.  ZOLLICKOFFER, 


J.  K.  Nichols, 
G.  G.  Westfall, 
A.  Harper, 

S.  M.  LoWDEN. 


G.  R.  Barr, 
T.  J.  Finch, 


ORGANIC  UNION  ACCOMPLISHED 


563 


which  are  parties  thereto,  take  with  them  all  of  the  boards,  insti- 
tutions, and  property  belonging  to  the  General  Conferences 
represented  in  the  two  Conventions  now  assembled,  or  in  the 
Joint  Convention.  That  this  Convention  appoint  a  committee  of 
three  persons  to  inquire  into,  and  make  provision  for,  any  altera- 
tion that  may  be  deemed  necessary  or  important  to  make  con- 
formity and  uniformity  in  all  of  the  titles  of  property  and  boards 
to  the  new  conditions  and  relations  thus  assumed."  A  paper, 
offered  by  John  Scott  and  signed  by  S.  M.  Lowden,  A.  Clark, 
E.  A.  Wheat,  and  A.  H.  Bassett,  "was  adopted  by  an  informal 
vote, "  defining  their  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  the  article 
on  suffrage  as  adopted  from  the  Committee  of  Conference. 
H.  F.  Zollickoffer,  messenger  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Con- 
vention, announced  that  the  Convention  had  agreed  to  the  report 
of  the  Committee  of  Conference.  The  report  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  programme  of  Formal  Union  was  read,  and  T.  B. 
Appleget  named  as  Marshal.  The  Convention  adjourned  sine 
die. 

The  Methodist  Protestant  Convention,  fifth  day.  May  16,  the 
report  of  the  Committee  of  Conference  was  further  considered, 
and  adopted  by  a  yea  and  nay  vote,  sixty  yeas  and  five  nays,  the 
latter  all  from  North  Carolina  delegation.  It  was  resolved  that 
when  the  Convention  adjourns  it  shall  be  to  meet  at  Starr  church, 
in  accordance  with  the  programme  of  the  Joint  Committee  of 
arrangements.  Afternoon  session  was  convened  in  Starr  church, 
and  the  programme  of  arrangements  was  read  and  approved. 
J.  T.  Murray  was  appointed  Marshal.  It  should  be  read  between 
the  lines  of  these  five  days  of  deliberation  of  either  Convention, 
as  recorded  so  pacific  and  irenic,  that  the  contention  was  earnest 
and  serious  over  the  matter  of  suffrage  in  the  reorganized  Church. 
The  Committee  of  Conference  held  numerous  futile  meetings,  and 
at  one  period  agreement  seemed  impossible.  An  incident  will 
illustrate.  The  writer  had  for  guests  John  Burns,  Alexander 
Clark,  S.  H.  Flood  of  the  West,  and  J.  L.  Michaux,  of  the  South. 
Those  from  the  West,  returning  to  luncheon  at  noon  of  the  fourth 
day,  gravely  announced  that  the  Committee  of  Conference  could 
not  agree,  and  a  failure  seemed  to  impend.  The  writer  said  to 
the  brethren:  "Well,  if  that  be  the  fact,  there  seems  nothing  for 
the  brethren  of  the  Methodist  Church  but  to  return  home ;  but 
our  Convention  will  remain  in  session.  It  will  strike  out  the 
word  "  white  "  and  so  readjust  our  Constitution  and  Discipline  as 
to  leave  you  logically  without  excuse  for  a  separate  existence." 


564 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Happily,  when  the  brethren  returned  in  the  evening,  it  was  to 
announce,  joyfully,  that  the  Committee  had  agreed  and  Union 
was  assured. 

The  Methodist  Protestant  Convention  about  4.30  p.m.  of  the 
fifth  day  marched  to  the  corner  of  Lombard  and  Fremont  streets, 
about  half-way  to  the  Methodist  Convention  at  Green  and  Lom- 
bard streets,  who  marched  to  the  same  junction.  Then  two  by 
two,  under  the  direction  of  the  marshals, -they  joined,  one  from 
either  Convention,  and  so  proceeded  to  the  Starr  church,  a  united 
body.  The  spectacle  attracted  much  attention  from  the  citizens, 
as  well  it  might.  The  two  Conventions  had  been  noticed  in  all 
the  secular  papers  of  the  country,  even  the  large  ^N'ew  York  dailies 
giving  up  space  to  them,  while  the  family  of  Christian  Advocates, 
North  and  South,  not  wont  to  advertise  anything  Methodist 
Protestant,  sent  felicitations,  so  that  the  Church  came  into  notice 
as  never  before  in  its  history,  and  to  its  manifest  advantage.  It 
was  the  first  formal  reunion  of  dissevered  ecclesiasticisms  since 
the  Civil  War,  and  once  more  the  country  recognized  a  Continen- 
tal Methodism,  knowing  no  Xorth,  no  South,  no  East,  no  West, 
sectionally. 

General  Coxvextion 

The  first  day's  proceedings  cannot  be  better  expressed  than  in 
the  official  minutes  prepared  by  the  secretaries  at  the  time.  "In 
accordance  with  the  Plan  of  Union  agreed  to  by  the  Conventions 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  Methodist  Churches,  at  Balti- 
more, Md.,  May  15  and  16,  1877,  the  representatives  of  the  two 
Churches  assembled  in  Joint  Convention  at  Starr  Methodist  Prot- 
estant church,  Baltimore,  Md.,  May  16,  1877,  at  4.45  p.m.,  for 
the  purpose  of  consummating  the  Union  of  the  Churches 
represented. 

"The  Joint  Convention  was  called  to  order  by  Rev.  L.  W. 
Bates,  D.D.,  President  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Convention. 

"Rev.  J.  J.  Smith,  D.D.,  President  of  the  Methodist  Conven- 
tion, then  addressed  the  assembly.    He  said:  — 

"Brethren,  I  rejoice  to  see  this  day.  For  years  I  have  longed  for  it,  and 
yet  often  felt  it  was  but  hoping  against  hope.  I  recognize  in  it  the  result  of 
the  many  earnest  prayers  that  have  gone  up  from  every  quarter  of  the  land. 
Many  thousands  of  hearts  shall  rejoice  when  the  tidings  come  of  this  great 
consummation.  The  scene  reminds  me  of  that  which  transpired  in  the  upper 
chamber  at  Jerusalem  when  all  the  disciples  v/ere  with  one  accord,  in  one 
place,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  fell  on  thtm  all.    It  is  the  work  of  the  Gospel  to 


JUBILATION  OF  THE  REPRESENTATIVES 


565 


unify,  to  break  down  barriers  of  separation,  and  bind  the  good  in  brother- 
hood. From  this  time  onward  our  influence  shall  be  wider  and  deeper.  The 
time  is  not  far  distant  when  all  the  denominations  shall  see  more  nearly  eye 
to  eye,  and  become  one  army  to  face  successfully  every  form  of  opposition 
and  march  on  to  the  conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ.  Let  us  determine 
that  our  resolution  to  work  for  Christ  and  humanity  shall  now  be  intensified. 
We  may  have  diversities  of  opinion,  and  yet,  as  in  the  natural  world,  with 
diversity  there  may  still  be  unity  —  unity  of  heart  and  unity  of  work.  This 
day's  work  will  swell  the  great  wave  of  unification  that  rolls  on  to  conquer 
the  world." 

"  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates  then  addressed  the  Convention.    He  said :  — 

"  Twenty-three  years  have  passed  since  the  Churches  here  represented  have 
been  represented  in  the  same  body.  The  universal  Church  and  world  will 
recognize  our  action  as  the  accomplishment  of  a  great,  noble,  and  glorious 
purpose.  We  have  done  what  it  is  exceedingly  difi&cult  for  men,  or  any 
form  of  organization,  to  do.  But  it  was  not  difdcult  for  us,  because  in  our 
separation  there  was  less  crimination  and  bitterness  of  feeling  than  ever  at- 
tended a  like  severance  of  relations.  Still  retaining  the  old  respect,  and  con- 
fidence, and  love  toward  each  other,  we  found  it  easy  to  blend:  It  was  also 
easy  for  us,  because  we  represent  the  sentiment  of  the  people  who  compose 
our  Churches.  They  speak  to-day.  We  are  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  the 
united  Church  we  represent.  Our  separation  has  proven  this  fact  —  divided 
we  were  too  strong  to  fall,  and  now  united  we  must  do  more  than  stand. 
The  basis  of  imion  is  not  entirely  acceptable  to  any  of  us.  No  measure  of 
compromise  ever  was.  We  had  to  reach  the  point  by  mutual  concessions. 
So  long  as  we  maintain  that  disposition  and  follow  that  policy  we  have  noth- 
ing to  fear  ;  nothing  can  break  our  harmony.  We  should  now  be  a  stronger, 
and  holier,  and  more  successful  Church.  As  it  was  our  mission  to  take  the 
initiative  in  establishing  the  doctrine  of  lay-representation  among  Methodists, 
so  to-day  in  reuniting  our  several  members,  we  take  the  initiative  in  the 
glorious  work  of  unification  among  such  Churches  of  the  land.  They  have 
followed  us  in  that,  may  they  also  imitate  us  in  this.  I  now  pronounce  this 
the  General  Convention  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  I  call  upon 
you  to  arise  and  sing,  '  Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow.' 

"  The  scene  that  ensued  beggars  description.  As  the  great  as- 
sembly arose,  and  the  triumphant  measures  of  the  old  doxology 
rolled  through  the  sanctuary,  every  eye  was  dim  with  tears,  and 
every  form  trembled  with  unutterable  emotion.  'The  place 
v^here  they  were  was  shaken,  and  they  were  all  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost.'  Business  was  suspended,  and  speeches,  brief, 
earnest,  joyful,  impressively  eloquent,  filled  up  more  than  an 
hour.  Alexander  Clark  of  Pittsburgh ;  Dr.  Southerland  of  Mary- 
land; Dr.  Batchelorof  North  Carolina;  Walker  of  Michigan;  the 
venerable  Father  Williams  of  Missouri;  Duggan  of  Tennessee; 
Colhouer  of  Pittsburgh;  Hickerson  of  Louisiana;  Hon.  C.  W. 


566 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Button  of  Virginia;  Flood  of  Indiana;  John  Smith  of  Maryland; 
ex-Governor  Pierpont  of  West  Virginia,  and  others,  spoke,  while 
fervent  responses  and  joyful  exclamations  broke  out  on  every 
side.  The  climax  was  reached  when  William  H.  Wills,  D.D.,  of 
North  Carolina  said  'that  he  had  been  opposed  to  the  union;  but 
now  the  union  is  consummated  he  pledged  himself  before  God 
and  his  brethren  to  do  nothing  that  shall  mar  the  peace  and  pros- 
perity of  the  union/  He  turned  to  the  Convention,  and  said, 
'Entreat  me  not  to  leave  thee,  or  to  return  from  following  after 
thee,  for  whither  thou  goest  I  will  go,  and  where  thou  lodgest  I 
will  lodge;  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God; 
where  thou  diest  will  I  die,  and  there  shall  I  be  buried.' 

"At  this  moment.  Dr.  Scott  of  Pittsburgh,  the  extremist  of  the 
other  side,  crossed  the  chancel,  and,  suddenly,  the  two  men  were 
folded  in  each  other's  arms.  The  example  was  contagious;  Whit- 
field of  North  Carolina  shook  hands  with  Smith  of  New  York 
across  the  altar  rail ;  on  all  sides  hands  were  grasped,  and  men 
were  in  each  other's  embrace.  And  the  sound  of  song  was  not 
hushed,  nor  the  holy  communion  of  brethren  broken  up,  till  the 
shadows  of  evening  fell  upon  the  earth.  So  closed  this  most 
memorable  day  in  the  history  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church." 

The  doxology  was  sung  by  two  hundred  voices,  as  never  before 
by  these  brethren;  and  the  General  Convention  adjourned,  with 
the  benediction  by  J.  J.  Smith. 

On  the  second  day  permanent  officers  were  elected  by  ballot, 
resulting  in  the  selection  of  L.  W.  Bates  for  President,  J.  J. 
Smith,  Vice-President,  and  G.  B.  McElroy  and  R.  H.  Wills, 
Secretaries.  In  the  afternoon  session,  and  subsequently,  the 
President  announced  the  Standing  Committees : 

Eevision:  John  Burns,  S.  B.  Southerland,  H.  Stackhouse, 
E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  F.  H.  Pierpont,  G.  W.  Kent,  B.  S.  Bibb,  and 
W.  Vandervort;  Boundaries:  G.  R.  Barr,  W.  H.  Wills,  S.  H. 
Flood,  G.  W.  Boxell,  F.  H.  Pierpont,  J.  Curry,  S.  V.  Pickens, 
and  E.  D.  Stultz;  Periodicals:  J.  Scott,  A.  H.  Bassett,  and  J.  F. 
Harris;  Colleges:  J.  S.  Thrap,  N.  R.  Swift,  and  P.  Donly; 
Missions:  R.  Rose,  B.  F.  Benson,  and  T.  J.  Finch;  Ritual: 
J.  T.  Murray,  C.  S.  Evans,  and  J.  W.  Scott;  Hymn  Book:  A. 
Clark,  D.  W.  Bates,  and  P.  Remsburg;  Means  of  Grace:  J.  H. 
Hamilton,  T.  D.  Valiant,  and  0.  Hammond;  Sunday-Schools: 
R.  S.  Norris,  E.  S.  Brown,  and  L.  W.  Batchelor;  Ministerial 
Education :  D.  Wilson,  A.  Harper,  and  W.  R.  Parsons ;  Greet- 


NEW  CONSTITUTION  AND  DISCIPLINE  567 


ings  to  his  Excellency  the  President  of  the  United  States: 
A.  Clark,  William  Gray,  J.  M.  P.  Hickerson,  B.  S.  Bibb,  and 
W.  S.  Hammond;  Ecumenical  Conference  of  Methodism:  J.  J. 
Murray,  B.  F.  Duggan,  J.  W.  Hering,  John  Scott,  J.  S.  Thrap, 
J.  F.  Kellogg,  T.  Douglass,  and  0.  Lowther;  Church  Extension: 
C.  S.  Evans,  F.  H.  M.  Henderson,  E.  Williams;  Blank  for 
Statistics:  B.  F.  Duggan,  G.  G.  Westfall,  W.  D.  Mitchell;  His- 
torical Preface:  P.  J.  Strong,  J.  G.  Whitfield,  A.  H.  Bassett, 
E.  B.  Bates,  H.  F.  Zollickoffer ;  Pastoral  Address:  J.  Kost, 
J.  J.  White,  T.  H.  Colhouer,  T.  B.  Appleget,  J.  K.  Nichols,  J.  C. 
Eoberts,  J.  W.  Hering. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  having  indicated,  by  letter 
to  a  member  of  the  Conference,  that  he  would  be  pleased  to  re- 
ceive a  delegation  from  the  body,  the  foregoing  committee  was 
appointed  accordingly,  who  performed  the  duty  and  brought  the 
body  the  congratulations  of  the  President  on  the  accomplished 
Union.  The  third  day,  and  every  day  with  frequency  thereafter, 
the  Committee  on  Kevision  reported  sections  of  the  new  Consti- 
tution and  Discipline.  Their  voluminous  work  need  not  be 
recorded  in  detail,  as  the  revised  Book  shows  what  portions  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  and  what  portions  of  the  Methodist 
Book  were  incorporated.  An  investigation  will  evince  that  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Book  was  substantially  adopted,  with  the 
additions  of  the  new  and  successful  Boards  of  Ministerial  Educa- 
tion, Foreign  Missions,  and  Church  Extension,  which  had  been 
organized  in  the  Methodist  Church.  There  was  much  unanimity 
in  the  Kevision  Committee  and  on  the  part  of  the  Convention  in 
this  important  proceeding.  The  Committee  on  an  Ecumenical 
Methodist  Conference  reported  favorably,  and  advised  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Committee  of  Correspondence,  and  of  four  min- 
isters and  four  laymen  to  represent  the  Church  in  it.  The 
Fraternal  Messenger  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Eev. 
Dr.  Alexander  Gibson,  was  introduced,  and  addressed  the  body, 
with  a  response  from  the  President.  The  Committee  on  Periodi- 
cals reported  that  it  would  be  "  injudicious  to  interfere  with  the 
existing  arrangements  for  the  publication  of  our  Church  papers; 
and  that  the  present  editors  and  publishers  be  retained  and  the 
matter  of  readjustment  referred  to  the  ensuing  General  Confer- 
ence." The  Committee  on  Colleges  reported  giving  in  detail  the 
facts  as  to  Yadkin  in  North  Carolina,  Adrian  in  Michigan,  and 
Western  Maryland  in  Maryland.  The  Catechisms  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  were  adopted.    The  Committee  on  Hymn 


568 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Book  reported  that  the  existing  books  be  used  until  another  shall 
be  authorized  by  the  Church,  and  that  the  Committee  be  empow- 
ered to  correspond  with  other  committees  of  the  Methodist  family 
to  secure  uniformity  in  the  service  of  praise,  and  report  to  the 
next  General  Conference. 

It  is  a  part  of  the  unwritten  history  of  this  action,  that  the 
Chairman,  Alexander  Clark,  in  the  writer's  presence  and  after 
consultation  with  him,  wrote  to  Bishop  Simpson  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  while  the  Convention  was  yet  in  session, 
inquiring  if  their  new  book  could  not  be  made  to  recognize  the 
Church  by  the  introduction  of  a  few  original  hymns,  in  view  of 
the  adoption  by  the  Churches  of  a  general  hymnal.  He  answered 
courteously,  that  the  committee  on  revision  of  their  new  book 
had  finally  adjourned,  but  he  would  be  pleased  to  further  the 
common  use  of  their  book  in  any  way  possible.  Dr.  Clark  and 
the  writer  both  construed  this  answer  to  mean  that  no  recognition 
could  be  given  the  Church  by  the  insertion  of  any  of  the  original 
hymns  found  in  its  two  books;  and  the  matter  was  dropped.  Dr. 
Clark  did  not  live  to  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  and  hence 
no  report  of  these  facts  was  made  by  him.  The  proposition  to 
adopt  their  book  was,  however,  pressed  by  another  member  of 
the  committee,  A.  H.  Bassett,  and  as  earnestly  opposed  by  the 
writer,  who  furnished  the  Conference  these  facts,  with  the  result 
that  a  large  and  able  committee  was  appointed  to  compile  or 
adopt  a  new  hymn  book  for  the  Church.  Investigation  showed 
how  stupendous  was  the  undertaking.  After  much  futile  labor, 
they  adopted  the  hymn  book  of  Dr.  Eben  Tourgee,  which  had 
been  prepared  by  him  for  the  use  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  It  was  so  popular  and  largely  introduced  that  their  en- 
suing General  Conference  was  prompted  to  make  preparations  for 
their  present  book,  and  thus  Tourgee's  was  gradually  superseded. 
It  was  revised  by  the  Committee,  and  a  number  of  original  hymns 
introduced,  making  it,  substantially,  what  was  needed.  It  has 
been  used  for  the  past  twenty  years,  with  the  usual  result  of 
sporadic  dissatisfaction;  as  in  the  matter  of  church  hymn  books 
the  destructive  critics  are  much  more  numerous  than  the  construc- 
tive ones.  It  was  pointed  out  by  the  brethren  of  the  East  and 
South  that  their  sectional  prejudice  was  against  the  adoption  of  a 
Northern  book. 

The  writer  has  recently,  under  a  revival  of  the  agitation  that 
something  was  lost  by  the  rejection  of  the  new  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church  book,  made  a  critical  examination  of  this  hymnal. 


THE  HYMN-BOOK  QUESTION 


569 


It  consists  of  1117  hymns,  with  or  without  music,  and  in  various 
convenient  forms.  It  must  be  admitted  that,  as  an  anthology  of 
sacred  song,  it  is  unequalled  by  any  collection  in  existence.  It 
cost  the  competent  committee  the  labor  of  four  years,  and  its 
whole  expense,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  reputed  at  ^25,000. 
It  is  evident  that  the  committee  had  before  them,  for  reference 
and  selection,  all  the  collections  of  every  denomination,  from  the 
Sarum  breviary  downward,  and  for  nearly  all  there  is  some  recog- 
nition. But  you  look  in  vain  for  any  Methodist  Protestant  hymn, 
as  such.  Either  the  committee  strangely  overlooked  the  two 
books  then  in  use,  or,  if  before  them,  found  nothing  to  approve 
in  the  splendid  lyrics  of  Stockton,  the  admirable  hymns  of  Clark, 
Scott,  Cox,  Varden,  and  others.  Almost  everything  ever  written 
before  and  since  the  Luther  reformation  is  here,  but  the  exception 
named.  Charity  says  it  may  have  been  purely  accidental,  but 
the  fact  remains.  Two-thirds  of  these  hymns  are  never  sung, 
either  in  their  public  congregations  or  social  meetings ;  and  it  has 
come  in  for  a  larger  share  of  criticism  than  Dr.  Tourgee's  book, 
as  adopted,  and  with  more  cogent  reasons.  As  an  anthology  it 
is  crowned  a  success;  as  a  singable,  every-day  hymnal,  it  is 
declared,  by  not  a  few  of  their  critical  people,  a  failure;  and 
already  the  destructive  critics,  who  never  have  constructive 
ability  themselves,  are  clamoring  for  a  new  book.  It  is  note- 
worthy, also,  that  at  the  Ecumenical  Conference  of  1881,  in  Lon- 
don, and  that  of  1891,  in  Washington,  earnest  efforts  were  made 
to  secure  a  concentrated  movement  for  a  universal  Methodist 
hymn  book,  as  the  first  and  only  practical  step  toward  unifica- 
tion; but  nothing  came  of  it.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
with  its  overshadowing  wealth  and  numbers,  made  no  sign, 
though  it  was  plain  that  initial  action  had  to  come  from  them. 
And  yet  their  reticence  spoke,  and  it  said:  Here  is  our  book; 
adopt  it.  There  might  have  been  an  immense  pecuniary  saving 
to  all  the  Methodisms,  if  either  of  these  Conferences  had  appointed 
and  empowered  a  committee,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
leading  in  a  generous  concession,  to  compile  a  book,  which  should 
bear  the  imprint  of  all  the  followers  of  Wesley  the  world  over. 
It  was  not  done,  and  it  is  easy  to  place  the  responsibility.  It 
remains,  at  this  writing,  to  see  what  the  ensuing  General  Confer- 
ence will  do  with  the  hymn-book  question.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  at 
least,  that  the  destructives  will  not  have  their  way  in  a  blind 
foray. 

The  Committee  on  Pastoral  Address  made  their  report,  which 


570  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


was  adopted  (pp.  45,  46,  of  the  Minutes).  The  Committee  on 
Nomination  of  Delegates  to  the  Ecumenical  Conference,  etc., 
reported :  Committee  of  Correspondence,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  Alex- 
ander Clark,  W.  J.  C.  Dulan}^,  and  J.  J.  Gillespie;  Representa- 
tives: G.  B.  McElroy,  S.  B.  Southerland,  J.  M.  P.  Hickerson, 
J.  Burns,  B.  S.  Bibb,  P.  F.  Bemsburg,  C.  W.  Button,  T.  J. 
Finch.  The  Committee  of  Correspondence  was  added  to  the 
number.  E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  on  behalf  of  the  Baltimore  Directory, 
suggested  that  the  Convention  of  Conferences  on  its  publishing 
interests  by  the  church  law  should  meet  at  the  General  Confer- 
ence, which  had  been  superseded  by  this  Convention.  The 
Directory  was  ready  to  report  to  such  Convention  of  Conferences, 
if  a  call  was  made.  Xo  demand  being  made,  it  was  referred  to 
the  ensuing  General  Conference.  Fraternal  messengers  were 
appointed  to  the  English  Methodists,  the  Methodist  Episcopal, 
and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  The  next  General 
Conference  was  set  for  Pittsburgh.  A.  H.  Bassett  and  E.  J. 
Drinkhouse  were  made  a  Committee  on  Statistics,  to  report  their 
work  in  the  printed  Minutes.  A  proper  celebration  by  the 
Annual  Conferences  of  the  semi-centennial  of  the  Church,  in 
1878,  was  recommended.  A  new  Constitution  for  the  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  was  submitted  and  approved.  (See  Appendix 
H,  in  first  volume.)  Ministerial  Education  through  the  Theo- 
logical Schools  at  Adrian  and  Westminster  was  approved.  A 
new  Constitution  for  the  Board  of  Church  Extension  was  sub- 
mitted and  approved.  A  day  of  thanksgiving  was  ordered  for 
the  "  providential  guidance  which  has  resulted  in  the  now  hap- 
pily consummated  Union,"  etc.  The  General  Conference  ad- 
journed, at  11.40  P.M.  of  the  seventh  day.  May  23,  1877,  by 
singing  the  doxology,  and  the  benediction  pronounced  by  G.  B. 
McElroy. 

The  Committee  of  Statistics  made  the  following  report,  very 
imperfect,  and  as  to  Sabbath-schools  omitted  entirely  in  the 
Methodist  minutes,  and  very  defective  in  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant, chiefly  for  the  reason  that  the  system  of  "  Union  "  schools 
prevailed  over  the  South,  and  these  are  not  denominationally 
reported.    The  tables  are  added.  ^ 

1  Some  dissatisfaction  was  expressed  with  the  brevity  of  the  Minutes  of  the 
Conventions  as  printed.  Those  who  wish  to  consult  the  proceedings  in  full  will 
find  them  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  of  even  dates.  The  debates  and  addresses 
are  given  with  detailed  accuracy  and  fulness  as  furnished  from  the  original  Min- 
utes of  the  secretaries  and  the  editor's  notes. 


STATISTICS  OF  REUNITED  CHURCH  571 


An  incident  of  the  General  Convention  was  the  photograph 
group  of  all  the  members,  to  the  number  of  146,  which  was 
secured  through  the  enterprise  of  the  pastor  of  West  Baltimore 
station,  Kev.  J.  M.  Holmes.  A  framed  copy  now  hangs  on  the 
study  wall  of  the  writer,  and  as  he  looks  into  these  faces  he  is 
struck  with  the  heavy  percentage  of  those  who  no  longer  respond 
to  the  greetings  of  their  earthly  friends.  Soon  the  entire  body 
will  be  a  memory  to  the  Church. 

The  returned  brethren  everywhere  sounded  a  key-note,  and  the 
reunited  Church,  for  the  next  score  of  years,  entered  upon  a  tide 
of  prosperity  unexcelled  in  the  history  of  denominations. 


Statistics  of  the  Methodist  Church  —  May,  1877. 


Annual  Conferences 


New  York  

New  Jersey  

Onondaga   

Genesee  

Pittsburgh  

Muskingum  

Ohio  

Michigan  

West  Michigan  .... 

Indiana  

N.  Illinois  and  "Wisconsin 
South  Illinois  .... 

Iowa  

Minnesota  

Nebraska  

Kansas  

Oregon  

Missouri  

North  Missouri  .... 

Tennessee  

Kentucky  

E.  North  Carolina  .  .  . 
W.  North  Carolina .    .  . 


Totals 


758 


<=  „  to 
O  "  fc- 

S  U3  O 


605 


^5 


2,711 
1,841 
1,984 

705 
7,088 
9,.506 
5,<)04 
2,212 
1,842 
4,835 
3,140 
1,889 
3,007 

300 

339 
1,542 

100 
1,855 
1,309 

230 
1,795 

519 

987 


56,000 


149 
280 
132 


73 
285 
217 

81 
268 

159 
280 

39 


2,072 


31 
30 
23 
7 
88 
130 
93 
18 
15 
63 
60 
31 
34 
1 
1 
1 
2 
12 


674 


169 


$169,000 
93,850 
71,150 
20,900 
371,000 
161,157 
166,275 
53,340 
29,150 
66,200 
152,000 
25,000 
69,500 
15,000 
500 
1,440 
5,000 
6,570 
7,000 
300 


1,800 
2,215 


$1,494,347 


A.  H.  Bassett,       )  Committee 
E.  J.  Dkinkhouse,  y  on  Statistics. 


672  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Statistics  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church —  Mat,  1877. 


« 

Annual  Conferences 

a 

^   ^  00 

<v  ~ 
a  ^ 

3 
a 
.2 

.a 

in 
So 

s 

o 

2-1  § 
.S  .S  9 

- o 

1 

o 

3 

CO 

0*0 

Sow 

Oi  OQ  33 

III 

Maryland  .... 

110 

53 

12,383 

1,019 

204 

44 

12,447 

8785,265 

Virginia  .... 

28 

18 

3,300 

33 

600 

27,000 

West  Virginia     .  . 

43 

IG 

9,480 

93 

13 

4,220 

69,550 

North  Carolina  .  . 

45 

59 

9,300 

85 

13 

3,567 

74,750 

30 

6 

2,462 

42 

1,152 

15,899 

Ark.  and  Louisiana 

32 

21 

2,645 

20 

22,900 

35 

15 

1,700 

15 

2,500 

North  Mississippi  . 

18 

10 

1,300 

15 

3,000 

North  Arkansas  .  . 

31 

18 

1,800 

20 

5,000 

Alabama  .... 

35 

15 

2,900 

30 

6 

60,000 

Pennsylvania  .    .  . 

15 

14 

.  671 

12 

3 

930 

26,800 

Tennessee  .... 

18 

4 

1Q 

11  Col'   XCJaliCooCO    .  . 

17 

6 

1,140 

10 

3,500 

Illinois  &  Des  Moines 

6 

6 

500 

10 

300 

11,000 

30 

21 

2,110 

25 

1,300 

29,500 

South  Carolina  .  . 

9 

11 

1,075 

8 

9,775 

McCaine  .... 

11 

7 

1,100 

10 

3,000 

Colorado  .... 

19 

8 

800 

8 

2,000 

South  Illinois  .    .  . 

11 

6 

800 

10 

700 

4,000 

Mississippi     .    .  . 

8 

4 

580 

5 

2,750 

S.  E.  Missouri    .  , 

5 

2 

150 

3 

1,000 

556 

320 

57,405 

677 

§1,168,389 

Methodist  Church 

758 

605 

56,000 

2,072 

674 

169 

1.494,347 

Totals  .    .  . 

1,314 

925 

113,405 

1,351 

82,(502,736 

The  blank  spaces  mean  that  no  report  could  be  secured,  hence  such  columns 
are  not  summed  up. 

A.  H.  Bassett,  )  Committee 
E.  J.  Drixkhouse,  )  on  Statistics. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


The  Annual  Council ;  history  of  it  —  New  Church  life  inspired  by  the  Union  of 
1877  — The  W.  F.  M.  S.  of  Baltimore  city,  and  what  it  did  —  Obituaries  of 
Reformers  —  Editors  of  the  official  papers  travel  together  through  the  South- 
west, visiting  conferences  —  The  Bible  School  Series  inaugurated  by  the  editor 
of  the  Baltimore  paper,  and  successfully  carried  forward  for  a  series  of  years 
—  J.  B.  Walker's  agency  for  the  Western  Maryland  College  —  Obituaries ;  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  G.  Whitfield  and  others  —  Decease  of  Alexander  Clark  —  Evidence  of  the 
great  success  of  the  reunited  Church  statistically  proven  — The  General  Con- 
ference of  the  M.  E.  Church,  1880;  lay-delegation  and  laymen  in  the  Book 
Concern  — The  Ecumenical  Conference  of  1881  called. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church,  in  1875, 
authorized  an  annual  meeting  of  the  President  of  the  General  Con- 
ference, the  president  of  the  college,  the  editor  and  publisher,  and 
the  corresponding  secretaries  of  the  different  Boards.  It  met  at 
Adrian,  Mich.,  July,  1875,  and  adopted  the  title:  The  Annual 
Council.  The  second  meeting  was  held  at  Springfield,  O.,  July 
12-13,  1876,  and  published  in  pamphlet  form  its  first  report,  oc- 
tavo, thirty-two  pages.  "  Its  powers  are  simply  advisory,  and  its 
jurisdiction  limited  to  the  consideration  of  the  general  interests 
of  the  Church."  It  supplied  in  part  that  executive  branch  of  our 
governmental  system,  which  the  "fathers"  left  lacking  through 
a  belief  that  the  Annual  Conference  presidents  would  supply  it 
by  a  uniform  adherence  to  the  forms  of  law,  and  the  original 
limits  of  the  Church  did  not  to  them  seem  to  call  for  a  more 
decisive  executive  branch,  and  a  general  prejudice  against  even 
the  seeming  of  a  central  authority.  The  Annual  Council,  re- 
stricted as  it  was,  answered  a  good  purpose ;  it  was  overlooked  by 
the  Committee  on  Revision  in  1877,  but  it  was  continued  until 
the  General  Conference  of  1880.  By  an  effort  of  the  writer 
in  the  General  Union  Convention,  this  serious  executive  defect, 
as  the  Church  enlarged  and  had  interdenominational  business, 
was  partially  remedied  by  the  following  provision:  "The  Presi- 
dent of  the  General  Convention  or  Conference.  He  shall  be 
recognized  as  the  connectional  officer  of  this  body  until  the  suc- 
ceeding General  Convention  or  Conference.    He  shall  be  invested 

673 


674 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


with  no  powers  or  prerogatives,  except  the  purely  ministerial  one 
of  receiving  and  answering  such  correspondence  as  may  be  ad- 
dressed to  him  in  the  interval  of  the  quadrennial  sessions  of  our 
legislative  assembly.  The  Secretary  of  the  General  Convention 
or  Conference  shall  also  hold  his  office  until  the  succeeding  General 
Convention  or  Conference,  and,  if  present,  shall  call  the  body  to 
order."  It  was  so  carefully  guarded  that  it  was  passed  despite 
the  anecdotal  opposition  of  a  respected  member  of  the  body,  who 
warned  the  Convention  that  it  was  a  gosling  which  after  awhile 
would  become  a  bishop  gander.  The  writer  also  succeeded  at  the 
General  Conference  of  1892  in  investing  the  President  with  power 
to  change  the  place  of  the  General  Conference,  with  the  cooper- 
ation of  the  Board  of  Publication,  no  provision  having  been 
made  for  such  an  exigency  otherwise.  "  The  Annual  Council " 
was  reenacted  by  the  General  Conference  of  1880  (see  pp.  83-84  of 
Discipline),  on  the  same  basis  as  before.  It  held  regular  meet- 
ings during  the  quadrennium,  but  found  itself  so  hampered  by 
severe  limitations  of  authority,  that  even  some  of  its  friends 
reached  the  conclusion  that,  unless  strengthened,  it  did  not 
answer  the  purpose  intended.  Meanwhile  a  few  writers  in  the 
official  papers  raised  the  old  alarm  of  a  centralized  authority, 
though  there  was  not  a  vestige  of  it,  and  the  expense  was  also 
declaimed  against,  though  every  Board  had  its  annual  meeting 
anyhow;  so  on  the  motion  of  a  member,  in  1892,  without  debate, 
the  Annual  Council  was  wiped  out,  as  no  one  had  a  plan  for  its 
better  constitution.  But  the  demand  for  an  executive  authority 
in  the  interval  of  the  General  Conference  continued  to  grow  with 
the  growth  of  the  Church,  until  now  there  is  a  decided  reaction, 
and  it  is  hoped  that  the  ensuing  General  Conference  will  make 
proper  provision  for  the  unification  of  Annual  Conference  busi- 
ness, the  enforcement  of  forms  of  law,  and  the  efficiency  of  the 
General  Boards. 

After  an  inauguration  of  fraternity  by  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
and  ]Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  Commissioners  were 
mutually  appointed,  who  met  at  Cape  May,  X.  J.,  August  17-23, 
1876,  and  agreed  to  federation  between  the  severed  brethren, 
which  included  an  amicable  settlement  of  Church  property  and 
the  recognition  of  each  as  legitimate  Methodist  Episcopal 
Churches.  In  part  it  led  to  the  first  Ecumenical  Methodist 
Conference. 

The  official  papers  for  the  year  1877-78  exhibit  the  new 
ecclesiastical  life  inspired  by  the  reunion,  the  Annual  Conference 


HISTORY  OF  TEE  "ANNUAL  COUNCIL'''  575 


meetings  reported  increase  of  membership  and  general  prosperity, 
while  the  home  and  foreign  mission  operations  of  the  Church 
received  a  new  impulse.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  movement 
of  the  women  for  foreign  missions  in  the  Maryland  Conference 
took  so  broad  a  Christian  form  that  the  Conference  of  1876 
authorized  the  woman's  society  of  Baltimore  city,  in  lieu  of 
established  work  in  foreign  lands,  to  cooperate  with  the  W.  F. 
M.  S.  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  the  collections  to 
be  lifted  paid  to  the  editor  of  the  official  paper,  and  by  him  to  be 
transferred  to  the  treasurer  of  said  society.  It  was  done  for  that 
year,  and  then  its  funds  were  transferred  to  the  Foreign  Board, 
as  it  was  meantime  making  initial  preparations  for  work  of  its 
own. 

Anderson  Landers  was  born  July  3,  1807,  and  deceased  April 
8,  1876.  He  was  an  original  Tennessee  Reformer  from  the  year 
1828,  being  a  member  of  the  "Reformed  Methodist  Society," 
afterward  merged  into  the  "Associated  Methodist  Churches." 
He  was  often  a  delegate  to  the  Annual  Conference,  and  was  true 
to  his  convictions  to  the  end.  George  Percival  of  Lynchburg, 
Va.,  deceased  June  8,  1877,  in  his  eighty-sixth  year,  the  last  of 
the  eleven  brethren  expelled  in  that  city  for  Reform  principles. 
Joseph  Wilson  deceased  June  30,  1877,  aged  ninety-five.  He 
was  the  father  of  Revs.  Thomas  M.  and  David  Wilson  of  the 
Maryland  Conference,  and  spent  his  life  on  its  Pennsylvania 
border.  He  was  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  an  original  Reformer, 
and  steadfast  to  the  Church  and  Christ  to  the  close  of  his  long 
life.  This  church  History  should  make  record  of  the  departure 
out  of  this  life  of  Rev.  T.  B.  Balch  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
Like  his  father,  hitherto  mentioned,  Rev.  Dr.  Stephen  Balch,  he 
was  a  true  friend  of  the  new  organization  from  the  beginning. 
The  son,  a  literary  recluse  for  many  years,  was  a  voluminous 
contributor  to  the  Baltimore  paper  through  his  life,  and  made  it 
a  rule  to  attend  the  Maryland  Conference  whenever  its  proximity 
to  his  Virginia  home  made  it  practicable.  The  elders  will  not 
forget  his  thin,  gaunt  figure,  eccentric  habits,  and  brilliant  intel- 
lect.   He  died  February  14,  1878. 

In  the  autumn  of  1877  the  editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper,  worn 
down  by  a  combination  of  labors,  at  the  suggestion  of  Alexander 
Clark,  editor  of  the  Methodist  Recorder,  resolved  in  the  interest 
of  reunion  fraternity  to  make  with  him  an  extended  itinerary 
among  the  West  and  Southwest  Conferences.  They  travelled 
through  the  Mississippi  valley,  the  Indian  Territory,  and  Texas, 


576 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


as  far  as  Galveston,  striking  Conferences  whenever  it  was  pos- 
sible, if  but  a  single  day  could  be  spent  with  the  brethren.  The 
intent  of  the  journey  was  appreciated,  and  a  large  number  of  new 
subscribers  were  added  to  both  the  ofi&cial  papers.  Much  en- 
thusiasm was  awakened  by  this  personal  contact,  while  the 
editorial  correspondence  excited  a  lively  interest  all  over  the 
Church.  The  writer  closed  a  seven  weeks'  absence  by  attending 
the  Alabama  Conference,  making  a  travel  of  some  five  thousand 
miles.  The  Annual  Council  having  been  announced  to  meet 
July,  1877,  at  Springfield,  0.,  did  so,  and  published  its  reports 
by  a  mutual  arrangement  in  the  form  of  a  four-page  supplement 
to  the  official  papers  of  September  22.  J.  B.  Walker,  Corre- 
sponding Secretary  of  the  Board  of  jMinisterial  Education,  an- 
nounced that  Calvin  Tomkins  of  Tomkins'  Cove,  N.  Y.,  had  made 
a  mortuary  gift  of  ^10,000  to  the  Endowment  Fund  of  Adrian 
College. 

May  4,  1878,  the  editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper,  impressed  that 
the  Church  should  not  be  dependent  upon  other  denominations 
for  its  international  Sabbath-school  lessons,  and  a  suggestion  to 
add  such  a  publication  to  the  Pittsburgh  Morning  Guide  having 
been  declined,  the  Baltimore  Directory  authorized  its  issuance  at 
the  individual  expense  and  responsibility  of  the  editor.  The 
first  number  of  the  Bible  /School  was  issued  July  1,  1878,  a  four- 
page  large  quarto  monthly  paper  at  50  cents  a  year,  the  inside 
devoted  to  the  lessons  and  the  outside  to  illustrations  and  reading 
matter.  For  two  years  and  a  half  the  lessons  were  furnished  by 
Dr.  Webster  and  Kev.  T.  H.  Lewis,  the  latter  having  given  sug- 
gestions from  the  first.  From  January,  1881,  the  lessons  were 
by  Dr.  Webster  and  Bev.  J.  D.  Kinzer,  and  from  July,  1884,  to 
January,  1885,  by  Dr.  Webster  and  Rev.  J.  F.  Cowan,  when  it 
was  discontinued.  It  was  very  popular  from  the  beginning,  and 
rose  in  circulation  to  an  average  edition  of  twenty  thousand,  but 
confined  almost  entirely  to  the  East  and  South.  It  paid  current 
expenses,  but  allowed  no  compensation  to  those  laboring  upon  it. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  met  at  Atlanta,  Ga.,  May,  1878,  and  Dr.  Alexander  Clark 
and  Dr.  F.  H.  M.  Henderson  made  addresses  as  fraternal  messen- 
gers, which  were  well  received,  and  responded  to  cordially  by 
Bishop  Pierce.  In  Baltimore,  Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati,  Fairmont, 
W.  Va.,  and  other  places  semi-centennial  celebrations  were  held. 
That  in  Baltimore  was  in  the  old  St.  John's  church,  Liberty 
Street,  where  the  original  Conventions  were  held,  the  address 


BIBLE  SCHOOL  SERIES  —  CUUMCH  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  517 

being  by  Rev.  Dr.  S.  B.  Southerland,  a  production  of  great  force 
and  beauty,  wliich  was  published  in  the  official  paper  and  repro- 
duced in  other  connections.  Bishop  Simpson's  "  Encyclopaedia 
of  Methodism  "  was  issued  in  1878,  a  large  volume,  illustrated, 
seven  pages  being  given  to  a  sketch  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  furnished  by  the  writer,  as  also  fifty -five  portraits  and 
sketches  of  prominent  ministers  and  laymen,  those  of  the  East 
and  South  prepared  by  the  writer,  and  those  of  the  North  and 
West  by  Alexander  Clark  mainly.  Though  the  sketch  of  the 
Church  is  impaired  a  little  by  the  Bishop's  editing,  it  is  the  fairest 
presentation  ever  made  in  a  Methodist  Episcopal  publication. 
Also,  in  the  summer  of  1878,  Jackson  Grove  Camp,  on  the  B.  & 
P.  Railroad,  midway  from  Baltimore  to  Washington,  was  estab- 
lished as  a  permanent  ground  commemorative  of  the  Church's 
semi-centennial.  After  a  number  of  years'  successful  operation, 
it  was  arrested  by  untoward  circumstances  and  ceased  to  be. 
Other  permanent  camps  were  established,  near  Pittsburgh  and  in 
Ohio,  and  other  places,  which  have  been  fruitful  of  good. 

The  forty-ninth  volume  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  was  issued 
June  29,  1878,  in  a  dress  of  new  type,  and  with  a  fresh  array  of 
contributors,  while  it  grew  in  circulation,  along  with  the  Bible 
School.  The  Methodist  Recorder  and  the  Morning  Guide  were  kept 
abreast  with  the  best  literature  of  the  day  by  the  indefatigable 
and  popular  editor,  Alexander  Clark,  whose  prolific  pen  poured 
out  volume  after  volume  in  addition,  supplemented  with  lectures 
and  other  engagements,  which  kept  him  in  a  whirl  of  exacting 
toil,  the  Sunday-school  publications  rising  within  a  year  from 
this  date,  three  in  number,  to  some  sixty -three  thousand  copies. 
Rev.  J.  B.  Walker,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Ministerial  Education,  undertook  the  Agency  of  Western  Mary- 
land College  as  well,  by  the  permission  of  the  Board,  and  for 
some  eighteen  months  travelled  incessantly  over  the  State  of 
Maryland  soliciting  subscriptions  to  the  oppressive  debt  of  about 
$25,000  under  which  the  college  was  laboring.  He  pressed  its 
claims  with  a  zeal  and  fervor  misunderstood  hy  some,  who  tried 
to  evade  his  importunity,  until  about  $21,000  of  the  amount  was 
pledged,  and  enabled  the  trustees  to  cancel  the  heavy  liabilities. 
It  was  a  herculean  labor,  of  which  this  mention  is  very  inade- 
quate. The  North  Carolina  Conference  was  divided  in  the  autumn 
of  this  year,  which,  with  the  Allegheny  and  the  Deep  River  Con- 
ferences, recognized  by  the  Methodist  Church  before  the  Union, 
gave  four  Conferences  for  the  State,  and  which  injuriously  con- 
voL.  n — 2  p 


578 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


tinned  for  a  few  years,  until  the  last-named  Conferences  disin- 
tegrated, and  the  North  Carolina  Conference  once  more  covered 
the  country.  During  1879,  the  women  of  the  Church  in  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference,  like  those  in  Baltimore  earlier,  interested 
themselves  in  the  foreign  missionary  work,  and  expended  their 
energies,  through  Miss  Guthrie,  in  the  employ  of  the  New  York 
Union  Missionary  Society,  before  referred  to,  and  their  initial 
work  in  foreign  lands  was  the  education  of  seventeen  young 
Japanese  girls  at  Yokohama  under  her  care.  For  a  detailed 
account  of  the  women's  work  thereafter,  see  Appendix  E  to  the 
first  volume.  The  Western  Protestant^  with  J.  M.  P.  Hickerson  as 
editor,  and  J.  W.  Harper  as  agent  and  manager,  was  issued  at 
Haynesville,  La.,  and  Dallas,  Tex.,  as  the  local  organ  of  the  trans- 
Mississippi  Conferences.  It  was  about  one-third  the  size  of  the 
Baltimore  paper,  at  one  dollar  a  year.  It  was  well  conducted,  but 
soon  became  financially  embarrassed  and  was  discontinued,  the 
fate  of  many  such  predecessors.  So  great  was  the  success  of  the 
Bible  School  that  it  was  supplemented,  June  15,  1879,  with 
the  Bible  School  Journal,  a  sixteen-page  booklet,  bound,  and 
issued  monthly,  containing  the  lessons  and  cognate  matter,  as 
also  the  Weekly  Lesson  Leaf.  It  added  to  the  accumulated  labors 
of  the  editor,  and  the  three  publications  were  continued  until  the 
whole  series.  West  and  East,  were  placed  under  an  independent 
management  after  the  General  Conference  of  1884. 

Robert  B.  Varden  of  Maryland  deceased  May  7,  1878,  aged 
eighty-one  years.  He  was  an  original  Reformer,  and  occupied 
official  positions  in  the  Church  through  his  long  life.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  his  brother,  John  Varden,  of  Washington,  D.  C, 
brothers  of  Rev.  Josiah  Varden.  Rev.  Parker  Bowden  deceased 
March  20,  1878,  aged  seventy-three  years,  an  original  Reformer, 
resident  on  Chincoteague  Island,  Va.,  but  within  the  Maryland 
Conference  lines.  John  Stauffer  of  Maryland  deceased  December 
21,  1878,  aged  seventy-seven  years,  an  original  Reformer.  Wil- 
liam Whitney  of  Maryland  deceased  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  July  10, 
1878,  an  original  Reformer,  and  one  of  the  founders  of  the  cause 
in  Newark,  and  tlie  father  of  Rev.  Dr.  Whitney  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  one  of  her  most  popular  educators.  Henry  W. 
Nichols  deceased  at  Mexico,  0.,  January  3,  1879,  aged  sixty- 
eight  years;  a  native  of  Maryland  and  an  original  Reformer,  and 
brother  to  Revs.  J.  K.  and  J.  R.  Nichols  of  that  Conference. 
Solomon  Robbins  deceased  IMay  19,  1879,  an  original  Reformer, 
born  January  14,  1791,  in  North  Carolina,  died  in  Alabama. 


NECROLOGY  OF  EARLY  REFORMERS  579 


Rev.  Dr.  J.  G.  Whitfield  deceased  at  Enfield,  N.  C,  August  28, 
1879,  born  September  1,  1810,  in  Virginia.  Converted  at  a 
camp-meeting  in  Isle  of  Wight  County,  Va.,  in  1827,  he  united 
with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  but  soon  became  acquainted 
with  early  Reform  literature,  and,  being  an  intelligent  reader,  with 
a  good  English  education,  he  embraced  its  principles,  and  in 
March,  1829,  at  Smithfield,  Va.,  he  with  a  number  of  others 
were  organized  into  an  Associated  Methodist  Church.  Licensed 
to  preacli,  he  at  once  began  itinerating,  receiving  his  first  appoint- 
ment September  1,  1829,  in  the  newly  organized  Virginia  Con- 
ference, and  he  continued  in  the  work  for  nearly  half  a  century, 
and  filled  every  position  of  honor  and  responsibility  his  brethren 
could  bestow  upon  him.  He  was  a  prominent  member  of  all  the 
General  Conferences  from  1842  to  1870,  the  last  of  which  he  was 
President;  a  member  also  of  the  Convention  of  1867,  and  of  1877 
when  he  was  a  representative  from  the  North  Carolina  Conference. 
His  end  was  triumphant,  though  for  several  weeks  his  bodily 
suffering  was  very  great.  An  extended  obituary  was  furnished 
the  official  paper  by  his  lifelong  friend.  Dr.  R.  B.  Thomson,  of  the 
Virginia  Conference.  He  was  apt  as  a  debater,  and  often  de- 
fended in  public  the  principles  of  the  Church;  practical  and 
strong  as  a  preacher;  socially  engaging;  an  affectionate  husband 
and  father;  conservative  and  cautious;  a  wise  counsellor  and 
steadfast  friend. 

Hon.  George  Vickers  of  Maryland,  born  November  19,  1801, 
deceased  October  8,  1879,  in  Chestertown,  where  he  spent  his 
entire  life.  Well  educated,  he  selected  the  law  as  a  profession, 
and  this  training  probably  did  much  to  give  him,  while  yet  under 
age,  a  fixed  preference  for  the  Reformers  of  1827-30,  so  that 
when,  in  1842,  at  a  camp-meeting  he  openly  professed  faith  in 
Christ,  he  at  once  united  with  the  Church  of  his  choice,  and  was 
honored  by  elections  to  its  General  Conferences.  His  profes- 
sional career  was  successful,  and  he  bore  the  credentials  of  college 
graduate,  major-general,  and  United  States  senator  with  becom- 
ing dignity  and  unostentation.  Through  a  protracted  illness 
from  angina  pectoris  he  was  calm  and  trustful.  David  Clark, 
born  June  24,  1795,  deceased  September  14,  1879,  at  Clinton,  0. ; 
an  original  Reformer  and  devoted  churchman.  John  Gephart 
deceased  September  19,  1879,  at  Cumberland,  Md.,  in  the  nine- 
tieth year  of  his  age;  an  original  Reformer,  with  a  clean  life 
record  and  a  peaceful  end. 

Rev.  William  Corrie  Lipscomb,  born  in  Virginia,  September 


580 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


13,  1792;  he  departed  this  life  peacefully  in  Washington,  D.  C, 
December  6,  1789.  Early  in  life  he  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  being  but  fourteen  years  of  age.  He  was 
rapidly  advanced  to  the  official  positions  of  the  Church,  and  as 
early  as  1823  took  intelligent  ground  in  favor  of  a  modification 
of  the  Church  government,  into  whose  character  he  was  fully 
initiated.  He  was  a  member  of  the  first  Convention  of  Eeformers 
in  Baltimore,  November,  1827 ;  of  1828 ;  and  Secretary  of  that  of 
1830.  It  was,  as  these  pages  have  already  noted,  on  his  return 
to  his  home  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  that  the  Official  Board  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  sanctioned  by  the  pastor  as  execu- 
tive, deprived  him  of  his  official  positions,  for  the  avowed  reason 
that  he  was  an  attendant  on  the  1828  Convention.  The  subse- 
quent steps  of  his  indignant  retirement  have  also  been  narrated. 
He  was  a  member  of  various  General  Conferences,  and  held  a 
foremost  position  in  the  Church  as  advocate  and  intelligent  con- 
tributor to  its  official  pay^er,  exhibiting  a  strong,  logical  intellect 
and  uncompromising  adherence  to  his  convictions.  Many  times 
a  member  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  his  commanding  person 
was  familiar  to  the  brethren.  As  a  preacher  he  was  clear,  forci- 
ble, and  tender,  though  his  close  attention  to  secular  pursuits 
made  his  ministrations  in  later  life  unfrequent.  His  obsequies 
were  conducted  in  the  Georgetown  church,  of  which  he  was  a 
founder,  by  the  pastor,  Eev.  J.  T.  Murray,  in  an  address,  assisted 
by  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick  and  W.  S.  Hammond.  His  remains 
repose  in  Oak  Hill  cemetery.  Kev.  George  Jones  of  the  Ten- 
nessee Conference  deceased  April  17,  1879,  in  his  eighty-second 
year.  One  of  the  "Reformed  Methodists,"  and  a  member  of  the 
"Union  Society,"  and  the  last  survivor  of  the  fourteen  expelled 
for  Reform  opinions,  without  the  form  of  a  trial,  by  Presiding 
Elder  James  Gwyne.  J.  J.  Burroughs,  of  Norfolk,  Va.,  deceased 
February  3,  1872,  aged  seventy-four  years,  but  of  whose  demise 
the  official  paper  made  no  note  until  1879,  an  original  Reformer, 
and  Secretary  to  the  Convention  of  1828.  Samuel  Tucker  de- 
ceased March  12,  1880,  aged  eighty-seven  years,  in  Washington, 
D.  C. ;  an  original  Reformer.  Rev.  William  Bowden,  born  May 
13,  1793,  in  England,  but  soon  came  to  this  country;  an  original 
Reformer  and  early  member  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  he  re- 
moved to  the  West,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Muskingum  Con- 
ference; and  still  later  in  life  removed  to  Fort  Scott,  Kan.,  where 
he  peacefully  departed,  February  9,  1880. 

Alexander  Clark,  editor  of  the  Metlwdist  Recorder,  left  his 


GREAT  PROSPERITY  OF  NEW  CHURCH 


581 


home  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  near  Wellsville,  May  2G,  1879; 
passed  through  Baltimore;  dined  with  the  writer,  wlio  found  him 
very  weak  from  recent  illness,  the  result  of  overwork;  travelled 
to  Yadkin  College  and  delivered  the  Commencement  Address, 
though  compelled  to  rest  midway  of  the  effort;  returned  to  Greens- 
boro', N.  C,  fulfilling  a  lecture  tour;  reached  Nashville,  Tenn., 
ill  and  worn,  with  intestinal  disease;  thence  to  Atlanta,  Ga., 
where  he  was  compelled  to  tarry ;  carried  from  the  hotel  to  the 
hospitable  home  of  Governor  Colquitt,  where  he  received  all  the 
attention  Christian  devotion  could  render,  and  where,  after 
several  weeks'  illness,  he  peacefully  departed  this  life,  July  6, 
1879,  Sabbath  evening,  at  7.35  o'clock.  Only  a  few  days  before, 
his  physicians  held  out  hope  of  his  recovery,  but  the  recuperative 
force  was  used  up  in  continuous  and  laborious  pursuits  and  travel, 
closing  a  varied  intellectual  and  moral  career  in  the  forty-fifth 
year  of  his  age.  His  remains  were  brought  to  his  late  home  by 
his  son,  who  attended  him  in  his  last  days,  and  buried  in  the 
cemetery  overlooking  the  river  he  so  much  loved.  Memorial 
services  were  held  July  11,  in  the  First  church,  Pittsburgh,  in 
the  presence  of  a  large  congregation.  Dr.  Scott,  the  writer,  and 
ministers  of  other  denominations  delivering  addresses.  No  death 
since  that  of  the  lamented  E.  Yeates  Eeese  so  shocked  the  general 
Church,  and  no  loss  was  more  heavy  to  the  publishing  interests. 
He  left  a  family  of  twelve  children  and  a  devoted  companion. 
Our  space  will  permit  only  this  inadequate  sketch,  though  it 
would  be  strikingly  interesting  to  trace  the  many  points  of 
parallel  between  his  career  in  the  Church  and  that  of  Eli  Yeates 
Eeese. 

In  evidence  of  the  progress  of  the  Church  after  the  Union 
Convention,  Eev.  J.  F.  Cowan  furnished  the  information  from  the 
official  papers  that  from  1878  to  1879  forty  new  churches  had 
been  dedicated,  fifteen  were  under  construction,  and  sixteen 
thoroughly  repaired,  or  more  than  one  a  week.  New  churches 
were  built  at  Atlanta,  Ga.,  Montgomery,  Ala.,  and  many  other 
places,  where  the  cause  had  been  almost  extinguished  by  the 
Civil  War.  Colored  Conferences  were  also  organized  under  the 
reconstructed  Discipline  in  Maryland,  Alabama,  Georgia,  Texas, 
and  South  Carolina.  The  colleges  at  Westminster,  Adrian,  and 
North  Carolina  were  prospering,  and  young  men  entering  the 
ministry.  The  outlook  was  most  hopeful.  Bassett's  "Concise 
History"  of  tlie  Church  appeared  late  in  1877.  It  had  been 
written  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  "Methodist  Church,"  and 


682 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


while  adequate  in  this  regard,  it  was  greatly  deficient  as  a  history 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  thought  partial  in  some 
of  its  statements.  The  author,  however,  cordially  accepted  sug- 
gestions, and  when  the  new  and  enlarged  work  appeared  in  1882, 
it  was  more  generally  approved,  and  has  answered  an  admirable 
purpose  as  a  historical  record  since  that  period.  The  writer  has 
endeavored  to  preserve  in  these  pages  all  its  valuable  information. 
The  Protestant  Recorder,  J.  W.  Harper,  editor,  a  four-page  folio, 
published  at  Magnolia,  Ark.,  took  the  place  of  the  Western  Prot- 
estant, and  had,  like  it,  a  short  career.  The  Annual  Council 
assembled  for  the  last  time  prior  to  the  General  Conference  at 
Springfield,  and  published  its  reports  through  the  official  papers. 
The  Methodist  Protestant  Missionary  was  issued  by  C.  H.  Wil- 
liams, at  his  own  risk,  in  the  interests  of  foreign  missions,  sixteen 
pages,  quarto,  the  first  number  bearing  date  August  30,  1879. 
Rev.  Dr.  John  Scott  was  elected  in  September  to  fill  out  the  un- 
expired time  of  Alexander  Clark,  as  editor  of  the  Church  paper 
and  Sunday-school  issues  at  Pittsburgh.  He  entered  upon  the 
task,  and  successfully  coped  with  its  many  difficulties.  The 
editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper  continued  his  visitations  to  the 
Conferences,  mostly  in  the  West.  The  Western  Record,  a  sixteen- 
page  quarto,  was  issued  at  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  in  the  interest  of 
Western  Conferences  putatively.  The  reader  cannot  fail  to  have 
observed,  as  a  coincidence,  the  extreme  age  of  so  many  of  the 
early  Reformers.  As  an  instance,  there  met  in  the  Baltimore 
Book  Room,  in  October,  1879,  at  the  same  time  and  not  by  con- 
cert, Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  then  eighty-eight.  Rev.  W.  C. 
Lipscomb,  eighty-eight,  and  Abner  Webb,  an  original  member 
of  St.  John's  church,  aged  ninety-six  and  seven  months.  An 
effort  was  made  in  the  autumn  Conferences  to  invest  the  ensuing 
General  Conference  with  Conventional  powers,  but  it  was  unsuc- 
cessful. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
met  in  May,  1880,  and  a  few  things  will  be  profitable  for  mention. 
The  roll  of  members  from  95  Conferences  showed  247  clerical 
delegates  and  141  lay-delegates.  Of  the  clerics,  142  are  presid- 
ing elders,  68  pastors,  17  educators,  11  editors,  7  are  agents  of 
societies,  and  2  secretaries  of  church  boards.  This  vast  pre- 
ponderance of  presiding  elders  has  ever  been  a  feature  and  is  one 
of  the  inevitable  results  of  a  hierarchic  system,  while  the  lay- 
delegation  is  seen  to  be  in  a  minority  of  one-third.  This  General 
Conference  through  its  committee  suggested  some  improvement 


TREASONABLE  SPEECH  ON  LAT-DELEGATION  583 


on  this  plan.  Dr.  Haygood,  the  fraternal  messenger  from  the 
Church  South,  gave  the  brethren  great  encouragement  to  do  better, 
in  that  he  lauded  the  operation  of  lay-delegation  on  its  plan  of 
equal  numbers  as  a  great  success,  as  well  as  the  conservative 
force  of  the  laymen.  The  several  Book  Concern  reports,  when 
submitted,  were  referred  to  a  committee  for  auditing,  and  the 
strange  spectacle  was  exhibited  that  some  of  the  agents  were 
named  to  audit  their  own  accounts.  On  this  subject  Ecv.  Dr. 
Smart  uttered  treasonable  things :  "  I  object  to  the  principle  of 
putting  men  on  the  committee  to  pass  upon  their  own  work. 
Now  as  to  laymen  being  on  the  committee,  I  have  this  to  say: 
This  is  business,  secular  business,  and  if  there  is  any  committee 
to  which  laymen  are  especially  adapted,  this  is  that  committee 
[applause].  Indeed,  I  think  laymen  ought  to  do  all  our  business 
in  reference  to  the  Book  Concern  [applause].  If  I  had  my  way, 
I  would  have  one  Book  Concern  with  one  head  [applause],  with 
three  good  laymen  to  manage  it  [applause].  I  think  we  treat 
the  laymen  a  little  gingerly.  They  ought  to  have  equal  rejjre- 
sentation  with  us  in  this  General  Conference  [applause].  It  is 
an  outrage  that  they  have  not."  As  the  last  sentence  fell  from 
his  lips  the  Bourbon  element  was  aroused,  and  "  one  brother  called 
the  speaker  to  order  for  wandering  from  the  subject."  It  would 
have  been  well  for  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  if  it  had  heeded 
these  wise  premonitory  words,  and  thus  saved  it  from  the  scandal 
of  a  few  years  later  under  clerical  control  of  the  New  York  Book 
Concern.  The  Committee  of  Correspondence  on  the  Ecumenical 
Conference  met  by  appointment  in  Cincinnati,  0.,  May  10,  1880. 
Of  the  Church  committee  only  the  writer  and  W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
were  in  attendance.  Great  harmony  prevailed,  with  Bishop 
Simpson,  Chairman,  and  it  was  agreed  to  hold  such  a  Conference 
in  London  some  time  in  August,  1881,  to  be  composed  of  four 
hundred  delegates,  one-half  to  be  from  the  Wesleyan  Conference 
of  England;  the  trans- Atlantic  brethren  exhibiting  great  fear 
that  they  might  be  overshadowed  in  numbers  and  influence,  so 
they  were  protected  in  this  way. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 


Thirteenth  General  Conference  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  May,  1880;  roster  of  members; 
Rev.  Dr.  G.  B.  McElroy,  President ;  Mrs.  Claney  of  the  W.  F.  M.  S.  addressed 
the  Conference  ;  also  subsequently  Miss  Brittain  on  Foreign  Missions ;  fraternal 
messengers  from  all  the  Methodisms  except  the  M.  E.  Church ;  its  significance 
explained  ;  note  added  to  the  Articles  of  Religion;  a  plan  for  the  unification  of 
the  publishing  interests  presented  from  Baltimore,  and  adopted  as  "  The  Board 
of  Publication";  conditions  and  terms  of  union  in  autonomy;  reports  from 
General  Boards;  Ecumenical  Conference  representatives  elected;  Book  Con- 
cerns' exhibit;  statistics — The  Methodist  Protestant  closes  its  fiftieth  year; 
Rev.  Dr.  A.  A.  Lipscomb  as  a  contributor ;  the  Bible  School  Series ;  declinature 
of  the  Pittsburgh  house  to  put  the  Sunday-school  papers  under  a  separate 
editor,  etc.;  obituaries  of  Reformers;  hymn-book  committee  and  its  ditiicul- 
ties  —  Ecumenical  Conference  in  London,  1881 ;  incidents  of  it  —  Year  Book  of 
the  Church ;  comparison  of  statistics  in  the  Methodisms ;  School  of  Theology 
at  We.stminster  organized  by  Rev.  T.  H.  Lewis  —  Significant  doing  in  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  the  Church  South  —  Annual  Council  of  the  Church  — 
Obituaries  of  Reformers;  semi-centennial  of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference ;  other 
incidents  of  Church  work  — A  homily  on  Church  fidelity  in  preachers  and 
people;  an  argument  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers. 

The  Thirteenth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  assembled  in  Pirst  church,  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  Priday,  May 
21,  1880,  and  was  called  to  order  by  the  Secretary  of  the  last 
Conference.  L.  W.  Bates  took  the  chair  under  the  new  law,  and, 
after  preliminary  business,  the  following  were  declared  elected 
members  of  the  Conference :  — 


Maryland 


L.  W.  Bates 
J.  J.  Murray 


Ministers 


Laymen 
C.  W.  Button 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany 


S.  B.  Southerland 
J.  T.  Murray 
E.  J.  Drinkhou.se 
W.  S.  Hammond 


J.  W.  Heringi 
O.  Hammond! 
W.  B.  U.silton 


J.  D.  Kinzcr 
David  Wilson 
T.  D.  Valiant 
J.  T.  Ward 


J.  W.  Thomp.son 
W.  H,  Wheatley 


Gaven  Spence 
W.  G.  Baker ' 
S.  IL  Green  1 


1  Absent. 
684 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1880 


Ministers 
John  Scott 
S.  F.  Crowtber 
John  Gregory- 
John  Cowl 
G.  G.  Westfall 


Pittsburgh 


Laymen 
J.  J.  Gillespie 
II.  T.  Reeves 
G.  W.  Pogue 
F.  H.  Pierpont 
W.  P.  Herbert 


Muskingum 


J.  H.  Hamilton 
1).  Trueman 
S.  A.  Fisher 
W.  Hastings 
E.  S.  Hoagland 
J.  M.  Woodward 
G.  W.  Hissey 


J.  Wells 

B.  McCormick 

J.  Murphy 

L.  Browning 

J.  W.  Scott 

W.  J.  Hibbs 

H.  E.  H.  Hartsock 


T.  B.  Graham 
A.  H.  Bassett 
W.  R.  Parsons 
J.  W.  Spring 


Ohio 


J.  M.  Johnson 
W.  White 
J.  J.  Ware 
D.  Dunbar  1 


I.  W.  McKeever 


West  Michigan 


S.  J.  Badcock 


G.  B.  McElroy 
J.  F.  Kellogg 


Michigan 


J.  S.  Duffy 
A.  A.  Rust 


H.  Stackhouse 
J.  H.  Luse 

I.  H.  C.  McKinney 
S.  H.  Flood 


Indiana 


J.  Van  Buskirk 
A.  D.  Amos 
T.  S.  Johnson 
N.  II.  Jones 


W.  H.  Jordan 
V.  H.  Brown 


North  Illinois 


Jas.  Ross 

A.  V.  Whitney 


G.  M.  Scott 
W.  Sparks 
E.  S.  Brown 


Iowa 


C.  H.  High 
J.  W.  Murphy 


J.  J.  Smith 
J.  H.  Robinson 


New  York 


1  Absent. 


586 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 

S.  Clawsoni 
J.  J.  Poynter 
George  Nestor 
M.  L.  Barnett 

A.  L.  McKeever 

B.  Stout 

A.  T.  Cralle 


T.  Aaron 


E.  Wright 
S.  A.  Long 


W.  H.  Wills 
J.  H.  Page 


J.  E.  Bounds 


J.  A.  Spence 

D.  Bagley 

r.  H.  M.  Henderson 
R.  S.  McGarity 

E.  T.  Hudson 


W.  M.  Woodward 


T.  B.  Appleget 

G.  R.  Barri 
J.  G.  Johnson 

W.  J.  Finley 


West  Virginia 

Laymen 

W.  A.  Strickler 
J.  W.  Hull 
W.  Mearns 
A.  Lantz 
John  Linn 
C.  P.  Hudson 
W.  I.  Lowther 

Colorado  (Texas) 

J.  J.  Mabrey  i 

South  Illinois 

George  Stout 

North  Carolina 

J.  W.  Hadley 
L.  W.  Batchelor 

McCaine  (Texas) 

J.  J.  Hefflln 

Alabama 

C.  E.  Crenshaw 

Oregon 

D.  B.  Wardi 

Georgia 

W.  C.  Adamson 
W.  D.  Mitchell 

Nebraska 
Kansas 

W.  W.  Shaw 

New  Jersey 

E.  S.  V.  Stultz 

Virginia 

I.  P.  Robinett  i 
W.  E.  Jones 

Tennessee 

G.  B.  Moon 

1  Absent. 


ROSTER  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 


687 


Central  Texas 


Ministers 
G.  P.  MUler 

Solomon  Long  * 


J.  R.  Ball 
C.  F.  Harris 
J.  L.  Michaux 
W.  W.  Amick 
C.  A.  Pickens 


John  Jones 

W.  Priddy 
A.  H.  Widney 

D.  L.  Fordney 


M.  Prindle 
N.  R.  Swift 


Laymen 


Deep  River 


E.  L.  McHargue 


Western  North  Carolina 

W.  J.  Ellis 


Missouri 
North  Missouri 

Minnesota 
Mississippi 


J.  Morris 


Joel  D.  Ross 


North  Kansas 


I.  Rhinehart 


Pennsylvania 


Onondaga 


G.  P.  Miller 


S.  R.  Swift 


E.  A.  Wheat 
J.  W.  Harper 
R.  R.  Brookshieri 


Genesee 

W.  B.  Williams! 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana 

Allegheny 


Baltimore  Mission  Conference  (colored)  was  represented  by  Thomas 
Wells.    Georgia,  G.  M.  Bargt,i  James  Smith.i 

One  hundred  and  forty-five  in  all,  the  list  as  will  be  noticed, 
is  imperfect  in  some  Conferences.    Thirteen  were  absent,  not 

1  Absent. 


688 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


counting  the  omitted  names.  It  was,  however,  one  of  the  most 
imposing  bodies  ever  assembled  in  the  name  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church.  Eev.  Thomas  Wells  (colored),  representa- 
tive messenger  from  Baltimore,  was  the  first  of  his  race  to  sit 
in  such  a  body  of  the  Church;  and  he  was  recognized  by  all 
sections  alike. 

At  the  afternoon  session  Kev.  G.  B.  McElroy  was  elected  per- 
manent President,  and  W.  S.  Hammond,  Secretary,  with  W.  H. 
Jordan  and  A.  H.  Widney,  Assistants.  The  President  announced 
the  Standing  Committees.  For  several  days  the  time  of  the  body 
was  occupied  in  receiving  business  from  Annual  Conferences,  and 
work  preparatory  to  legislation.  Mrs.  J.  H.  Claney,  of  the 
Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  was  granted  leave  to  ad- 
dress the  body  in  her  official  relation,  the  first  instance  of  the 
kind  in  Methodist  Protestant  history.  It  was  resolved,  as  the 
outcome  of  her  address,  that  the  Committee  on  Missions  report  "  a 
provision  for  the  discipline,  officially  recognizing  this  society  as 
one  of  the  permanent  organizations  of  the  Church,"  etc.  (See 
Appendix  F  to  first  volume.)  The  action  of  the  Committee  of 
Correspondence  on  the  Ecumenical  Conference  was  approved,  and 
steps  taken  to  elect  the  three  ministers  and  three  laymen,  to 
which  the  Church  was  entitled,  to  represent  it  in  that  Conference. 
The  report  of  the  Committee  on  lielation  of  Book  Concerns, 
F.  H.  Pierpont,  Chairman,  rehearses  the  antecedent  action  of  the 
Church  creating  the  two  Book  Concerns,  etc.,  a  feature  of  which 
was,  "  Your  committee  is  of  opinion  that  all  the  property,  real 
and  personal,  and  franchises  owned  by  the  Methodist  Church,  is 
now  owned  by  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church ;  and  is  held  by 
the  same  right,  and  for  the  same  use,"  etc.  The  Committee  on 
Fraternal  Belations  introduced  the  fraternal  messengers  from  the 
Metliodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  Rev.  Dr.  Harrison  and  Hon. 
P.  Hamil;  and  Eev.  W.  H.  Black,  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyte- 
rian Church.  They  addressed  the  Conference,  with  response  from 
the  President.  The  Committee  on  Judiciary  reported  "that  two- 
thirds  of  the  Annual  Conferences  entitled  to  representation  have 
invested  their  representatives  with  full  conventional  powers." 
But  on  a  division  of  the  Conference  it  failed  to  adopt  the  report 
of  the  Committee  by  the  close  vote  of  fifty-eight  yeas  to  fifty-nine 
nays.  A  special  committee  of  ten,  with  the  editors  and  publish- 
ers, was  appointed  on  Publishing  Interests.  ^liss  Brittain,  who 
had  been  selected  by  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society 
Board  to  succeed  the  lamented  Miss  Guthrie,  who  died  in  San 


FRA TEBNAL  MESSENGEliS  —  Q UER  Y 


589 


Francisco,  en  route  to  Japan  as  missionary,  addressed  tlie  Confer- 
ence on  the  subject.  A  committee  of  fifteen  to  prepare  a  new 
hymn  book  was  appointed,  with  instructions  as  to  its  character, 
etc.  The  following,  by  J.  T,  Murray,  was  adopted  as  a  note  to 
be  appended  to  "The  Articles  of  Eeligion,"  to  wit:  "These  arti- 
cles of  religion  set  forth  the  doctrinal  teachings  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,  and  those  who  enter  the  ministry  thereof, 
thereby  avow  their  acceptance  of  the  teachings  thus  formulated; 
and  good  faith  toward  the  Church  forbids  any  teaching,  on  their 
part,  which  is  at  variance  with  them."  Fraternal  messengers 
were  authorized  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  and 
the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church.  It  will  be  noticed  that 
at  this  Conference  no  fraternal  interchange  occurred  with  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  it  needs  explanation  histori- 
cally. It  having  been  found  by  that  dominating  Church  that 
much  of  its  General  Conference  time  had  been  occupied  in  the 
reception  of  fraternal  messengers  during  the  era  of  such  inter- 
changes inaugurated  by  it;  and  having  also  discovered  that  or- 
ganic Union,  i.e.  absorption  of  other  Methodist  bodies,  did  not 
materialize  as  the  ulterior  purpose  of  such  fraternity,  it  was  offi- 
cially announced  that,  with  certain  exceptions  named  by  it,  such 
interchange  in  future  would  be,  if  desired,  by  correspondence 
only.  As  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  was  one  of  the  Ameri- 
can Methodisms  omitted,  self-respect  made  it  impossible  for  it  to 
accept  the  poor  boon  of  a  recognition  by  correspondence,  with  the 
result  that  there  has  been  no  personal  fraternity  between  these 
Methodisms  since;  though  Drs.  J.  J.  Smith  and  David  Wilson 
had  been  cordially  received  at  their  May,  1880,  Conference,  as 
well  as  Dr.  Henderson  and  Dr.  Barr  by  the  Church  South  at  its 
last  Conference.  The  New  Connexion  Methodists  of  England 
had,  at  the  General  Conference,  now  in  session,  responded  most 
cordially  to  the  letters  of  fraternity  sent  them ;  and  between  these 
bodies,  so  analogous  in  structure,  other  civilities  have  since  been 
exchanged. 

The  Committee  on  Publishing  Interests  reported  a  plan  for  the 
unification  of  the  Book  Concerns  under  a  system  which  preserved 
their  autonomy.  The  plan  was  outlined  in  the  report  of  the 
Directors  of  the  Baltimore  Concern,  and  was  suggested  by  the 
writer.^    It  provided  for  a  change  of  the  incorporation  at  each 

1  The  "  idea  "  was  suggested  by  Dr.  John  Scott  during  a  fraternal  visit  to  the 
Maryland  Conference  in  the  spring  of  1880,  and  was  matured  as  a  "  plan  "  by  the 
writer  and  indorsed  by  the  Baltimore  Directory. 


590 


UISTORY  OF  METHODIST  liEFORM 


location,  so  as  to  place  both  Concerns  and  papers  under  the  Gen- 
eral Conference;  each  to  be  responsible  for  its  own  debts;  the 
title  to  be  "  The  Board  of  Publication  of  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church";  the  two  papers  to  be  official  organs;  the  general 
Board  to  have  power  to  decide  what  works  shall  bear  the  imprint 
of  the  Church;  a  majority  required  as  to  this  matter,  and  the 
prices  of  the  respective  issues;  an  annual  meeting  with  reports 
from  each  Directory;  special  meetings;  the  expense  of  the  joint 
annual  meeting  to  be  met  at  the  place  selected  by  alternation ; 
the  Directories  to  be  elected  quadrennially ;  the  General  Confer- 
ence to  decide  what  use  shall  be  made  of  any  surplus  profits ;  the 
present  Sunday-school  publications  to  be  placed  under  "The 
Board  of  Publication,"  with  control  thereof;  the  editors  and  pub- 
lishers to  be  elected  by  the  General  Conference;  the  Sabbath- 
school  publications  to  be  made  a  separate  department,  and  an 
editor  employed  to  conduct  them  at  the  option  of  the  general 
Board.  The  full  text  may  be  found  in  the  minutes  and  in  the 
Discipline.  This  arrangement  was  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise 
between  the  former  sections  of  the  Church  analogous  to  the  12th 
Article  of  the  Constitution,  the  pivotal  subject  of  compromise  in 
the  Union  Convention;  and,  as  such,  ought  no  more  to  be  dis- 
turbed in  its  essential  features,  except  by  mutual  consent  of  the 
whole  Church,  than  the  12th  Article.  The  historical  antecedents 
demand  this  observance  of  covenant  faith.  As  the  Book  Direc- 
tory of  Baltimore  the  following  were  elected :  J.  T.  Murray,  J.  D. 
Kinzer,  H.  F.  ZollickofPer,  Horace  Burrough,  and  J.  G.  Clark. 
As  the  Pittsburgh  Directory:  J.  J.  Gillespie,  J.  Tvlunden,  T.  W. 
Shaw,  G.  G.  Westfall,  and  John  Gregory.  E.  J.  Drinkhouse  was 
elected  Editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  and  Wm.  J.  C.  Dulany, 
Publisher  and  Book  Agent.  John  Scott  was  elected  Editor  of 
the  Metliodist  Recorder,  and  James  Pobison,  Publisher  and  Book 
Agent. 

The  Committee  on  Missions  reported  a  new  constitution  for  tlie 
Board,  and  made  recognition  of  certain  missionary  fields  as  such. 
The  Committee  on  Boundaries  reported  changes,  which  may  be 
seen  in  full  in  the  revised  Discipline.  The  Western  North  Caro- 
lina Conference  reported  that  the  Allegheny  Conference  had  been 
merged  into  it,  and  that  commissioners  had  been  appointed  to 
reunite  with  the  North  Carolina  Conference,  which  action  was 
approved  and  authority  given  to  merge  the  Deep  Eiver  Confer- 
ence into  it,  so  as  to  recognize  but  one  Conference  in  that  State. 
Adrian,  Western  Maryland,  and  Yadkin  colleges  reported  to  the 


BOOK  CONCERNS  UNIFIED 


591 


body,  and  were  recognized  in  their  respective  relations.  The 
Board  of  Ministerial  Education  reported:  assets,  $3234.27;  lia- 
bilities, $100.  Since  1875  eighteen  had  been  educated  under  its 
auspices,  eight  of  them  now  in  the  ministry,  one  withdrawn,  and 
nine  still  beneficiaries,  four  at  Adrian  and  five  at  Western  Mary- 
land College.  The  Discipline  was  amended  in  sundry  particu- 
lars. C.  H.  Williams  was  elected  Corresponding  Secretary  of 
the  Board  of  Missions,  and  J.  B.  Walker  of  the  Board  of  Minis- 
terial Education.  The  General  Board  of  Church  Extension  was 
discontinued.  The  division  of  Annual  Conferences  into  sub-dis- 
tricts was  recognized.  Sabbath-schools  were  placed  under  the 
supervisory  control  of  the  Quarterly  Conferences,  and  any  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  made  eligible  as  a  voter  on  election  of  super- 
intendent, if  present.  A  committee  of  five  was  appointed  to  fix 
the  place  of  the  ensuing  General  Conference  in  the  interval. 
The  following  were  elected  representatives  to  the  Ecumenical 
Conference:  L.  W.  Bates,  G.  B.  McElroy,  S.  B.  Southerland, 
C.  W.  Button,  J.  J.  Gillespie,  F.  H.  Pierpont.  The  Hymn  Book 
Committee  was  authorized  to  adopt  a  book  already  compiled, 
under  conditions.  An  overture  was  sent  to  the  Annual  Confer- 
ences to  invest  the  General  Conference  of  1884  with  conventional 
powers  for  specific  purposes,  —  the  restrictive  rule  and  some  other 
points.  The  Annual  Council  was  reenacted  with  enlarged  and 
specified  powers  (see  minutes  and  Discipline),  The  Pastoral 
Address  was  reported  and  published,  reviewing  the  three  years 
past  with  its  encouragements.  The  reports  of  the  Book  Concerns 
show  for  Pittsburgh,  value  of  real  and  personal  property, 
$18,367.33;  Baltimore,  with  no  realty,  $7433.33.  Both  reports 
are  in  detail  and  occupy  much  of  the  space  in  the  printed  Min- 
utes. The  Committee  on  Statistics  reported  as  follows.  It  will 
be  observed  that  there  are  no  returns  from  Sunday-schools,  the 
special  committee  not  being  able  to  secure  accurate  returns, 
owing  to  the  fact,  principally,  that  throughout  the  South,  since 
the  Civil  War  especially,  schools  are  conducted  on  the  Union  plan, 
and  these  are  not  denominationally  reported.  (See  p.  18  of 
printed  Minutes.) 

On  the  3d  of  June,  1880,  the  Conference  adjourned,  with 
prayer  by  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  and  the  benediction  by  Dr.  John 
Scott. 


592  msTouY  of  metiiobist  reform 


Statistics  of  the  Methodist  Protestaxt  Church,  1880 


S  5 

a: 

03 

0 

Annual  Conferences 

i  5  3J 

5  £ 
5  «  2 

<n 

(3 

C 

:n 

s 

0 

«  £  -ii 
3  ^  ^ 

S  ^ 

"2 

rt 

0 
I. 

s 

0 

cc 
u 

CJ 

-  ^  s. 

5 

Alabama  

'29 

2.625 

8 

59 

1 

$47,560 

Allegheny  .... 

19 

561 

15 

3,000 

Arkansas  and  Louisiana  . 

15 

33 

1,500 

35 

10,000 

Baltimore  (Colored) 

4 

6 

187 

10 

4 

13,800 

Batesville  

10 

5 

600 

6 

1,000 

California  

6 

70 

Central  Texas  .... 

14 

"6 

480 

""5 

1,750 

Colorado  (Texas) 

20 

19 

1,053 

"7 

7 

2,750 

Deep  River  .... 

14 

500 

17 

10 

2,000 

Genesee  

IS 

"2 

784 

17 

8 

7 

29,200 

Georgia  

32 

20 

2,552 

82 

51 

14,825 

Georgia  (Colored^  . 

15 

7 

&42 

15 

10 

1,490 

Indiana  

61 

50 

7,000 

200 

94 

10 

94.520 

Iowa  

33 

21 

2,280 

525 

23 

11 

40,900 

Kansas  

23 

12 

2,000 

2 

600 

Kentucky  

26 

6 

1,270 

"84 

2 

500 

Maryland  

110 

60 

14,9S0 

902 

218 

'45 

6S8.375 

Michigan  

59 

IS 

2,5S2 

164 

24 

26 

52,0.50 

Mississippi  .... 

15 

5 

1,000 

10 

2,0(tO 

Minnesota  .... 

IS 

8 

375 

"2 

2 

2,425 

Missouri  

5:3 

40 

2,523 

25 

15 

2 

10,000 

Muskingum  .... 

6S 

36 

10,000 

S3 

139 

11 

189,3(K) 

McCaini?  (Texas) 

10 

6 

600 

10 

3,(X>0 

Nebraska  

11 

9 

4&i 

"14 

2 

"2 

1,000 

North  Arkansas 

23 

6 

800 

10 

3 

1 

1,000 

North  Carolina 

21 

3 

2,900 

340 

34 

2 

26,925 

New  Jersey  .... 

20 

18 

1,818 

58 

29 

6 

85,225 

New  York  .... 

36 

14 

2,426 

87 

26 

10 

126.3(X) 

North  Illinois  .... 

41 

30 

2,570 

60 

58 

17 

109,000 

North  Mississippi  . 

IS 

10 

1,300 

15 

3,000 

North  Missouri 

35 

25 

1,300 

'42 

8 

1 

7,»K)0 

North  Kansas  .... 

23 

14 

593 

2 

2.300 

Ohio  

46 

4S 

6,009 

204 

103 

23 

216,700 

Onondaga  

56 

20 

2,170 

160 

25 

16 

48,600 

Oregon   

6 

4 

200 

2 

1 

5,000 

Pennsj-lvania  .... 

16 

14 

879 

36 

14 

5 

26,800 

Pittsburgh  .... 

47 

25 

7,000 

250 

80 

16 

464,0()0 

South  Carolina .... 

11 

7 

950 

23 

1 

7,000 

South  lUinois  .... 

33 

10 

2,275 

"20 

33 

4 

26.800 

Tennessee  .... 

20 

6 

1.063 

9,950 

Texas   

25 

2,400 
300 

Texas  (Colored) 

10 

"3 

"2 

1,1K)0 

Virginia  

13 

16 

2,551 

266 

41 

"1 

26,200 

West  Arkansas 

14 

930 

5 

l,Sf»0 

"West  Michigan 

48 

36 

2,000 

"42 

21 

"3 

30,360 

West  Tennessee 

17 

6 

1,140 

10 

3,500 

West  Virginia  .... 

^3 

S5 

9,736 

166 

120 

15 

93,615 

West  North  Carolina 

31 

21 

8,534 

123 

106 

51 

3'i.700 

1,:345 

755 

118,502 

3..>5y 

l,5(t9 

290 

Several  Conferences  made  no  returns  of  statistics.  A  small  Conference 
is  yet  existing  in  Massachusetts,  including  eight  or  more  ministers,  holding 
regular  ses.sions,  but  we  have  no  further  statistics.  A  Colored  Methodist 
Protestant  Conference  has  been  organized  in  Alabama,  but  not  making  ai>- 
plication,  it  was  not  recognized. 

(This  report  was  delayed  several  weeks  and  correspondence  had,  yet  but 
few  additional  data  could  be  obtained  ;  in  some  instances  resort  was  had  to 
the  figures  of  1877.) 


NEW  CUURCU  STATISTICS,  1880 


593 


The  aggregates  reported  here,  when  compared  with  those  of 
1877,  do  not  show  a  numerical  increase  commensurate  with 
reasonable  expectation  in  view  of  the  revival  intelligence,  the 
new  churches  built,  and  the  general  uplift  of  the  denomination 
by  the  reunion  through  the  intervening  three  years.  True,  they 
are  very  imperfect,  as  were  those  of  1877.  But  now,  as  then,  the 
writer  cannot  account  for  the  seeming  shortage  in  the  per  cent 
of  increase.  From  this  period  until  189G,  however,  the  aggregate 
growth  will  be  seen  as  something  phenomenal  —  no  denomination 
will  show  a  heavier  increase,  other  things  being  equal. ^ 

The  Daily  Christian  Advocate,  issued  during  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at  Cincinnati,  gave  a 
hint  of  the  ultimate  purpose  of  that  Church  in  furthering  an 
Ecumenical  Conference  in  these  pregnant  and  significant  utter- 
ances :  "  It  is  to  be  hoped  there  will  be  a  revival  of  churchly  loy- 
alty which  will  henceforth  rid  it  of  those  destructive  theories, 
that  at  the  Conference  just  closed  were  so  determinately  put 
forward  to  make  us  a  Methodist  Presbyterian  instead  of  a  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church.''  It  may  be  queried,  what  destructive 
theories?  The  only  answer  is,  Lay-Kepresentation,  an  elective 
Eldership,  etc.  Rev.  E.  B.  Byckerman,  D.D.,  of  the  Canada 
Methodist  Church  made  a  "  radical "  address  to  that  Conference, 
under  which  the  Bourbons,  like  the  writer  of  that  editorial, 
winced,  as  he  depicted  in  glowing  colors  its  success  under  the 
Union  of  the  Methodisms  in  that  province,  not  as  an  Episcopal, 
but  a  Presbyterian  Methodism,  with  lay-delegation  by  equality, 
and  elective  superintendency,  not  a  bishopric,  and  no  presiding 
elders.  Yet  to  this  day,  in  America,  by  the  dominating  Metho- 
dism, their  statistics  are  i)nt  in  the  Episcopal  column  in  any 
recapitulation.  (See  Baltimore  official  paper,  June  26,  1880.) 
The  Methodist  Protestant  closed  its  fiftieth  volume  under  that 
title.  A  series  on  Nicholas  Snethen,  by  Eev.  Dr.  A.  A.  Lipscomb, 
was  republished  in  the  Baltimore  paper  from  the  Quarterly  lie- 
view  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.    Dr.  Lipscomb, 

1  A  recurrence  to  the  subject  later  brings  out  the  fact  that  the  net  increase  of 
the  M,  E.  Church  for  the  quadrennium  was  about  two  hundred  thousand,  or  a 
little  less  than  four  per  cent.  The  foregoing  statistics  show  for  the  Church  a  net 
gain  of  about  five  thousand  for  the  three  years  from  1877  to  1880,  or  about  five 
per  cent.  In  other  words,  the  M.  E.  Church  in  the  past  four  years  has  increased 
about  one  per  cent  a  year,  and  the  M.  P.  Church  about  one  and  a  quarter  a  year 
for  the  past  three  years.  Before  the  close  of  this  History,  the  growth  of  the 
respective  Churches,  as  accepted  in  evidence  of  the  efficiency  of  the  systems,  will 
be  further  and  conclusively  exhibited,  though  it  is  by  no  means  a  fair  test  of  the 
scriptural  and  logical  consistency  of  a  Church  government. 
VOL.  II  —  2  Q 


594 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


now  esteemed  one  of  the  brightest  literary  and  religious  lights  of 
the  South-land,  was,  through  these  years,  a  voluminous  contrib- 
utor to  the  Methodist  Protestant.  Largely  for  lack  of  a  position 
in  the  Church  commensurate  with  his  abilities,  he  accepted  a 
professorship  in  the  Vanderbilt  University  of  the  Church  South, 
which  he  filled  for  a  number  of  years  with  great  acceptance  and 
literary  reputation.  Though  so  closely  allied  with  a  sister 
Methodism,  with  every  inducement  before  him  to  choose  other- 
wise, he  maintained  an  unfaltering  loyalty  to  the  Church  of  his 
father,  holding  the  relation  of  an  unstationed  minister  to  the 
Montgomery  church,  Alabama,  to  the  close  of  life.  It  was  an 
example  to  all  sons  of  worthy  sires;  but  from  its  default  the 
Church  has  suffered  greatly  in  the  past.  It  takes  grit  to  wed 
yourself  to  a  principle  at  the  sacrifice  of  social  preferment  and  a 
good  support. 

In  December,  1880,  the  Bible-School  Quarterly  was  added  to  the 
series  of  international  lessons  by  the  Baltimore  Directory,  put- 
ting a  fresh  burden  on  the  editor  in  his  single-handed  work,  with- 
out increase  of  compensation,  about  this  time  reduced,  on  his  own 
motion,  to  $1200  a  year.  Increase  of  current  expenses  in  other 
directions  made  it  a  necessity.  It  was  also  proposed  by  the  Bal- 
timore Directory,  under  the  permissive  legislation  of  the  last 
General  Conference,  to  make  the  Sunday-school  papers  a  separate 
department;  but  the  Directory  at  Pittsburgh  did  not  acquiesce  at 
the  time.  The  Annual  Council  was  held  in  July,  1880,  at  Steu- 
benville,  0.,  with  a  large  attendance.  A  plan  was  arranged  for 
Conference  visitations  by  the  Church  agents,  so  as  not  to  concen- 
trate their  attendance  at  some  to  the  neglect  of  others.  The 
editor  of  the  Baltimore  paper  made  a  wide  circuit  in  the  North- 
west.^ At  Pittsburgh  the  Sunday- School  was  discontinued,  leav- 
ing the  Morning  Guide  with  the  Child'' s  Recorder,  bi-monthly, 
both  of  them  beautiful  issues,  with  large  circulation.  Dr.  Scott 
pushed  these,  and  the  official  church  paper,  with  unflagging  zeal 
in  conference  visitations. 

Rev.  Alson  Gray,  of  the  North  Carolina  Conference,  departed 
this  life  September  23,  1880.  He  was  an  original  Reformer,  and 
spent  his  years  in  the  service  of  the  Church,  identifying  himself 
with  every  interest,  and  always  in  the  van  of  struggle.    Once  a 

1  The  writer  is  constrained  to  make  this  mention  of  the  continuous  and  uncom- 
pensated assistance  in  conducting  the  Church  paper  during  his  frequent  and  often 
prolonged  absence  at  conferences  of  Rev.  J.  D.  Kinzer,  while  serving  as  pastor 
of  Baltimore  churches,  for  a  series  of  years.  It  was  a  service  to  the  general 
Church  demanding  this  notice. 


THE  OFFICIAL  PAPER,  1821-1881 


595 


member  of  the  General  Conference  and  President  of  his  Annual 
Conference,  his  fidelity  was  never  questioned,  and  he  ranks  with 
the  Reform  heroes  of  his  section.  Announcement  was  made  of 
the  decease  of  Rev.  William  Neal  of  Texas,  an  original  Reformer; 
but  no  data  were  furnished  at  the  time.  James  A.  Kenneday  of 
Washington,  D.  C,  departed  this  life  October  4,  1880.  He  was 
born  September  26,  1795,  in  Philadelphia.  He  settled  in  Wash- 
ington in  early  manhood,  soon  became  a  Methodist  Christian, 
and,  as  early  as  1829,  embraced  Reform  principles,  and  was  a 
charter  member  of  the  First  church  (Ninth  Street),  laboring  with 
his  own  hands  in  its  erection,  and  giving  liberally  of  his  limited 
means  all  through  life  to  the  support  of  it.  While  the  church 
was  building,  to  save  it  from  embarrassment,  he  placed  a  mort- 
gage on  his  home  as  security.  When  an  aged  man,  finding  that 
his  means  were  more  limited,  he  counted  the  cost  of  a  life-long 
habit  of  tobacco  smoking,  cut  off  the  habit,  and  thus  saved  his 
church  subscription  from  enforced  reduction.  He  was  a  man  of 
rare  qualifications,  frequently  a  member  of  the  Maryland  Confer- 
ence, honored  in  the  community  for  his  business  fidelity,  and  in 
the  Church  for  all  the  elements  of  matured  Christian  character. 
Rev.  Dr.  W.  S.  Whitehurst,  of  the  Virginia  Conference,  deceased, 
aged  eighty  years,  at  Hawkins,  Tenn.,  October  2,  1880.  Such  is 
the  brief  mention  of  another  original  Reformer. 

The  first  number  of  Volume  51  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  con- 
tains an  elaborate  review  of  its  history  by  the  editor,  and  that 
of  his  predecessors,  from  1821  to  1881,  a  period  of  sixty  years. 
Much  valuable  information  is  here  condensed.  The  Hymn  Book 
Committee  of  fifteen  had  numerous  meetings  and  much  corre- 
spondence, and  the  ofiicial  papers  flamed  with  light  upon  the 
subject;  but  the  insuperable  difficulties  of  copyright  upon  hymns 
and  the  immense  expense,  led,  as  a  finality,  to  the  adoption  of 
the  book  now  in  use  as  the  only  method  of  securing  a  hymn  book 
with  the  music.  The  first  Ecumenical  Methodist  Conference,  in 
London,  shaped  itself.  Among  the  things  agreed  upon  was  an 
equal  representation  of  clerical  and  lay  members  from  the 
twenty-six  Methodisms  taking  part.  The  number  allotted  to 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  eighty;  but  when  they  came 
to  distribute  them,  there  were  so  many  worthy  aspirants  that  it 
did  not  seem  to  these  brethren,  so  long  used  to  do  everything  and 
to  be  everything  as  ministers,  possible  for  forty  laymen  to  be 
appointed;  so  they  disregarded  the  agreement  and  sent  but 
twenty-four  laymen,  or  something  near  the  delegation  they  had 


596 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


conceded  to  them  in  its  General  Conference.  It  was  not  a 
matter  of  moment  except  for  its  significance,  and  lience  this 
mention.  The  Gittings  Seminary  had  been  instituted  at  La 
Harpe,  IlL,  and  was  prospering,  under  Conference  auspices,  as 
a  school  for  young  women.  The  Annual  Council  met  this  year 
at  Sharpsburgh,  Pa.,  and  was  well  attended,  and  exhibited  the 
general  interests  in  an  improved  condition. 

The  first  Ecumenical  Methodist  Conference  assembled  in  City 
Eoad  chapel,  London,  September  7  to  20.  A  volume  would  not 
suffice  for  its  presentation,  so  notice  must  be  brief.  It  was  com- 
posed of  four  hundred  representatives,  one-half  of  them  laymen, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  as  noted. 
The  Methodist  Protestant  representatives  were  Dr.  S.  B.  Souther- 
land,  Dr.  G.  B.  McElroy,  Eev.  J.  H.  Eobinson,  J.  J.  Gillespie,  and 
Charles  W.  Button,  lacking  one  of  the  full  number  to  which  the 
Church  was  entitled.  The  ofiicial  papers  contain  exhaustive  cor- 
respondence on  the  subject  by  several  of  these  brethren,  and  the 
proceedings  were  afterward  issued  in  a  portly  volume.  It  was  pre- 
sided over  by  brethren  selected  from  the  different  Methodisms,  and 
the  Church  representatives  were  courteously  and  fairly  treated 
in  the  arrangements.  Dr.  Southerland  presided  one  day  and  also 
read  one  of  the  programme  papers.  At  one  of  the  side  meetings 
he  was  requested,  by  a  number  of  foreign  brethren,  to  make  an 
address  on  the  Non-Episcopal  Methodisms  of  America.  He  com- 
plied reluctantly,  knowing  the  delicacy  of  the  subject.  General 
Clinton  B.  Eisk,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  was  ap- 
pointed to  preside  as  pertinent.  An  unfortunate  episode  occurred 
on  his  introduction  of  Dr.  Southerland  as  from  "the  Protestant 
Methodist  Church,"  though  the  proper  title  was  before  him  on 
the  printed  programme.  In  such  a  representative  body  of  Metho- 
disms, Dr.  Southerland  was  impressed  that  it  ought  not  to  be 
overlooked,  and,  accordingly,  in  his  opening  remarks  made  the 
correction  and  stated  the  difference  of  implication  in  such  a  rever- 
sal of  the  Church  title,  as,  undoubtedly,  any  other  representative 
brother  present  in  like  circumstances  would  have  done  for  his 
Church.  That  address  may  be  found  in  the  official  paper  of  Bal- 
timore of  even  date,  and  an  examination  shows  it  to  have  been 
cautiously  and  prudently  worded;  yet  anything  defensive  of  Lib- 
eral Methodism  seemed  to  be  unpalatable  to  the  Episcopal  breth- 
ren, and  there  were  signs  of  unrest  and  impatience  expressed  in 
discourteous  methods,  as  well  as  a  time-call  of  the  presiding  officer 
indicative  of  his  own  dissatisfaction.    This  Conference  was  re- 


EPISODES  OF  ECUMENICAL  CONFERENCE  597 


puted  to  represent  4,800,000  of  world-wide  Methodists.  There 
was  great  enthusiasm  and  blending  of  brethren,  out  of  which 
came  a  proposition  to  hold  another  Ecumenical  Conference  in 
1887,  and  also  a  suggestion  that  the  American  Methodisms  should 
have  such  a  Conference  of  their  own.  Bishop  Simpson  and  Dr. 
H.  K.  Carroll  were  active  in  promoting  such  a  scheme  for  1884, 
marking,  in  their  estimation,  1784  as  a  starting-point  of  its  Metho- 
dism and  a  centennial  commemoration.  A  paper  for  such  a  call 
was  passed,  and  numerously  signed  by  the  Episcopal  brethren,  as 
also  the  names  of  three  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  representa- 
tives. When  the  information  reached  this  writer,  as  editor  of 
the  official  paper,  he  called  attention  to  the  incongruity  of  such  a 
date  as  1784,  and  fomented  opposition  to  the  participation  in  such 
a  centennial  as  a  Non-Episcopal  Methodism.  Several  of  the 
brethren  whose  names  were  attached  to  the  call  could  not  recol- 
lect their  signatory  act,  and  this  led  to  a  regrettable  question  of 
veracity  between  them  and  Dr.  Carroll,  which  the  writer  has  ever 
since  deplored. 

The  Methodist  Protestant  Year  Book  was  announced  for  1881- 
82,  by  E-ev.  Dr.  Stephens  of  Adrian  College,  and  it  was  issued, 
for  a  series  of  years,  by  himself  and  Eev.  J.  E.  Cowan,  but  finally 
surceased  for  lack  of  support.  Kev.  I.  H.  C.  McKinney  of  Indi- 
ana continued  and  enlarged  the  Western  Record  as  representing  a 
group  of  Conferences.  The  necrology  for  the  period  included 
Rev.  R.  R.  Prather  of  North  Carolina,  who  deceased  March  4, 
1881,  aged  eighty-seven,  for  fifty  years  a  minister,  and  an  early 
Reformer.  Rev.  Jesse  Mings  of  Texas  departed  this  life,  and 
was  known  as  "  father  "  Mings  for  his  years  and  long  association 
with  the  Church  in  that  section.  Rev.  Jonathan  M.  Flood,  M.D., 
of  the  Ohio  Conference,  deceased  July  21,  1881.^  He  and  his 
brother  Sandford  H.,  both  active  and  early  Reformers  of  the 
West,  were  nephews  of  Rev.  Jonathan  Elood,  who  died  October 
21,  1867,  after  fifty-eight  years  of  service.  He  was  born  in  Vir- 
ginia, December  29, 1781,  entered  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  his  twenty-first  year,  licensed  to  preach  in  1819,  and,  in  1829, 
withdrew  and  united  with  the  Associated  Methodist  Churches. 
His  name  was  enrolled  at  the  organization  of  the  Ohio  Confer- 
ence, October  15,  1829.    He  was  twice  President  of  that  body. 

1  Frequent  mention  has  been  made  of  this  honored  minister  in  the  course  of 
this  History,  but  no  obituary  details  are  at  tlie  command  of  the  writer.  He  occu- 
pied a  commanding  position  in  the  Church  of  the  West,  and  with  his  brother, 
Sandford  H.,  who  still  survives,  venerable  in  years,  did  much  to  mould  the  Church. 


598  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


In  his  eighty-sixth  year  he  peacefully  departed,  Rev.  Dr.  Brown 
preaching  the  funeral  sermon.  Rev.  J.  S.  Mitchell  of  Georgia 
Conference  was  born  May  28,  1810,  and  deceased  October  16, 
1881.  He  was  an  original  Reformer  and  father  of  Dr.  W.  D. 
Mitchell,  also  deceased,  but  long  a  pillar  of  the  Church  in 
Georgia. 

The  Methodist  Recorder  and  the  Sunday-school  papers  appeared 
in  January,  1882,  in  new  type  dress  and  much  improved.  Shortly 
thereafter  the  editor,  Dr.  Scott,  was  prostrated  with  typhoid 
fever,  and  for  a  number  of  weeks  hung  between  life  and  death, 
but  finally  recovered,  to  spend  many  years  in  efficient  service  to 
the  Church.  The  Board  of  Publication  held  its  annual  meeting 
in  Baltimore,  ^lay,  1882,  and  the  exhibits  then  made  are  as  fol- 
lows, by  totals:  Pittsburgh  Directory,  assets  $14,153.55;  circu- 
lation of  Sunday-school  papers,  13,790,  a  net  loss  since  a  year 
previous  of  5969;  Baltimore  Directory,  assets  $6597.78;  circula- 
tion of  Sunday-school  papers,  36,000,  a  net  gain  of  9000  over  a 
year  previous.  John  Munden  and  J.  G.  Clarke,  committee. 
(See  synopsis  for  Annual  Council.)  The  circulation  of  the  offi- 
cial papers  not  given  for  business  reasons.  Following  this  glint 
of  statistics,  it  will  be  interesting  to  note  that  in  April,  1882, 
those  of  the  Baltimore  Annual  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  showed  a  net  loss  in  members  for  the  year  of  923. 
In  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  of  the  Baltimore  Con- 
ference, covering  a  large  section  in  northern  Virginia,  the  loss 
for  the  same  period  is  reported  at  198.  In  the  Maryland  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  for  the  same  period, 
and  covering  nearly  the  same  territory,  the  net  gain  is  reported 
at  404.  These  facts  excited  at  the  time  unusual  interest,  and  the 
Neiu  York  Independent,  on  investigation,  found  that  in  the  110 
Conferences  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  for  1881-82,  the 
net  aggregate  loss  of  members  was  2647.  There  was  spiritual 
dearth  in  the  land,  but  the  significance  of  these  figures,  as  in 
contrast  with  those  at  the  last  General  Conference  of  1880,  can- 
not be  ignored.  A  School  of  Theology  was  organized  at  "West- 
minster, Md.,  with  Rev.  T.  H.  Lewis,  A. INI.,  as  Principal,  and 
its  first  session  was  held  in  the  autumn  of  this  year,  a  seminary 
building  having  been  subsequently  erected  for  the  purpose.  The 
eighth  Annual  Council  met  at  New  Brighton,  Pa.,  and  was  fully 
attended,  all  the  reports  from  the  colleges,  the  publishing  houses, 
and  the  general  agents  showing  progress  and  better  work.  Rev. 
James  Robison  resigned  as  Agent  of  the  Pittsburgh  Book  Con- 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 


599 


cern,  deafness  and  advancing  years  unfitting  him  for  farther  ser- 
vice in  that  connection.  He  was  succeeded  by  W.  J.  McCrackin, 
Jr.,  the  head  bookkeeper  of  the  house.  The  Conference  visita- 
tions, as  arranged  at  the  Annual  Council,  were  made  by  the  editor 
of  the  Baltimore  paper  and  the  general  agents,  and  the  good 
results  of  these  interchanges  were  apparent  in  reviving  a  connec- 
tional  spirit  and  in  improving  the  collections  for  these  interests. 
The  Annual  Conferences  under  the  impulse  indicated  more  uni- 
form work,  accurate  statistics,  and  published  minutes.  Theo- 
logical education  was  growing  under  the  importunate  labors  of 
J.  B.  Walker,  the  foreign  missionary  outlook  improved  in  Japan, 
and  the  denomination  felicitated  itself  at  now  possessing  all  the 
agencies  and  instruments  of  a  fully  equipped  Church.  More 
general  effort  was  made  to  establish  the  cause  in  the  towns  and 
cities  heretofore  given  up  to  other  denominations,  at  great 
numerical  loss  by  reason  of  the  trend  of  removals  in  that  direc- 
tion from  the  country.  The  new  hymn  book  also  came  into  large 
and  rapid  circulation  for  all  the  sections,  creating  another  bond 
of  connectionalism.  A  larger  number  of  educated  and  consecrated 
young  men  were  coming  into  the  ministry,  and  this  accretion 
strengthened  the  pulse  of  the  whole  organization. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church,  South,  met  at 
Nashville,  Tenn.,  in  May,  1882,  and  the  salient  event  germane 
to  this  history  was  the  introduction  by  half  a  dozen  prominent 
members  of  a  paper  reciting  the  two-order  theory,  and  the  validity 
of  Presbyterial  ordination,  thus  designating  the  bishopric  as  an 
office  and  not  an  order,  with  instruction  to  the  Committee  on 
Revisals  to  so  word  the  Discipline  that  in  the  absence  of  a  bishop 
at  an  Annual  Conference  elders  could  ordain.  Without  debate 
the  reference  to  the  committee  was  defeated,  and  then  a  motion 
to  lay  it  on  the  table  was  also  defeated,  so  that  the  paper  to  this 
day  hangs  suspended,  like  Mahomet's  coffin  in  the  fable,  between 
heaven  and  earth.  It  put  the  brethren  in  a  quandary,  as  it  was 
the  view  now  obtaining  in  the  Methodist  Church,  North ;  but  the 
South,  at  the  General  Conference  of  1844,  having  practically  put 
themselves  on  record,  to  make  the  case  of  Bishop  Andrew  stronger, 
that  the  bishopric  was  an  order  and  not  an  office  only,  and  there- 
fore not  liable  to  suspension,  held  to  this  high  church  view  and  it 
has  largely  obtained  ever  since.  They  will  yet  purge  themselves 
of  it.  Another  notable  event  was  the  declination  of  the  bishopric, 
to  which  he  had  been  elected,  by  Dr.  Haygood.  It  was  the  second 
instance  of  the  kind  in  the  history  of  American  Methodism,  Dr. 


600 


UISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


risk  declining,  and  for  the  same  reason, —  a  preference  for 
educational  work. 

In  May,  1883,  by  an  arrangement  with  the  Baltimore  Directory, 
Wm.  J.  C.  Dulany,  the  Book  Agent,  was  induced  to  accept  the 
whole  charge  of  the  business  department  of  the  official  papers  as 
well.  It  greatly  relieved  the  overworked  editor,  and  threw  larger 
efficiency  into  the  business  methods.  The  necessity  for  such  re- 
lief may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  at  this  time,  the  Balti- 
more Sunday-school  series  had  risen  to  an  aggregate  circulation  of 
about  fifty-live  thousand.  The  venerable  Miss  Rachel  Wilson, 
of  Harford  County,  Md.,  deceased,  leaving  bequests  of  $1000 
each  to  the  Superannuated  and  the  Home  Missionary  societies  of 
the  Maryland  Conference.  She  had  been  identified  with  the 
Church  from  the  earliest  period.  The  Jfethodist  Recorder  of 
London,  Eng.,  about  this  time,  reviewing  the  call  for  an  American 
Ecumenical  Conference  to  commemorate  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  history  as  an  Episcopacy,  dating  from  1784  centennially, 
and  as  of  ^yesleyan  origin,  scouted  his  authorization  of  its  sys- 
tem, and  poked  fun  at  the  brethren.  It  had  not  forgotten  that 
it  celebrated  its  true  centennial  in  18G6,  but  did  not  divine  that 
this  for  1884  had  for  its  ulterior  purpose  to  unify  the  branches  of 
Methodism  in  America  into  an  Episcopal  Church,  and  thus,  as 
the  editorial  in  the  Daily  Advocate  at  their  last  General  Confer- 
ence, already  cited,  intimated,  "end  the  destructive  theories" 
tending  to  make  it  Presbyterial  in  form.  The  Annual  Council 
assembled  this  year,  July,  at  Wellsville,  0.,  and  made  recom- 
mendations to  the  ensuing  General  Conference  for  certain  en- 
largements of  its  powers  in  directions  which  its  experience  showed 
would  be  useful,  and  yet  harmless  as  centralizing  authority.  But 
it  was  the  occasion  of  an  alarm  among  the  brethren  sensitive  to 
the  growth  of  a  bishop-gander  in  the  Church  out  of  the  gosling, 
that  swept  the  whole  plan  out  of  the  Discipline  in  1888,  the 
brethren  who  believed  in  it  despairing  of  additions  to  its  features, 
and  those  opposed  eager  to  find  this  occasion  against  it.  "  Rec- 
ollections of  Rev.  Samuel  Clawson,"  a  twelvemo  volume,  was 
issued  by  James  Robison,  thus  perpetuating  the  memory  of  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men,  next  to  Lorenzo  Dow,  ever  produced  by 
Methodism.  More  brilliant  than  Dow,  he  was  his  equal  in  piety 
and  eccentricity,  but  limited  in  his  range  to  West  Virginia  and 
the  adjacent  States.  The  Baltimore  official  paper  grew  this  year 
in  circulation  as  the  South-land  recovered  from  the  ravages  of 
the  Civil  War,  as  did  the  Methodist  Recorder  and  its  two  Sunday- 


NECROLOGY  OF  EAELT  REFORMERS  601 


school  papers  under  Dr.  Scott.  Kev.  G.  P.  Miller  issued  a 
Methodist  Protestant^  at  Corsicana,  Tex.,  in  December,  1883,  a 
monthly  at  ^1  a  year.  It  goes  for  the  writing  that  its  brief 
existence  entailed  loss,  as  in  so  many  cases.  Its  editor,  through 
more  than  a  score  of  years,  has  been  a  conspicuous  example  of 
adherence  to  principle  in  Church  loyalty.  With  abilities  to  com- 
mand high  position  elsewhere  or  in  secular  life,  he  has  kept  his 
colors  flying  for  the  cause  to  this  day. 

William  A.  Harris  of  Henderson,  N.  C,  son  of  Kev.  Ivy  Harris, 
born  October  23,  1813,  deceased  December  24,  1882,  an  original 
Keformer  and  an  honor  to  his  family  name.  A.  Wesley  Melvin 
of  Maryland,  born  June  19,  1810,  deceased  September  24,  1882, 
an  original  Reformer.  Rev.  Thomas  McCormick,  born  January 
5,  1792,  deceased  February  20,  1883,  in  his  ninety-second  year. 
These  pages  are  accented  with  his  name  and  deeds.  He  united 
with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  when  fifteen  years  of  age, 
rapidly  rose  to  all  its  official  positions,  was  licensed  to  preach, 
embraced  the  principles  of  Reform,  suffered  Expulsion  for  his 
devotion,  lived  a  spotless  life,  honored  even  by  his  ecclesiastical 
enemies.  His  obsequies  were  at  St.  John's  church.  Liberty 
Street,  of  which  he  was  an  original  member,  with  addresses  by 
Dr.  A.  Webster  and  the  pastor.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray.  His  remains 
were  deposited  in  Mount  Olivet  cemetery,  where  repose  scores  of 
the  early  Methodist  preachers,  and  his  memory  is  blessed.  Rev. 
I.  H.  Hogan,  born  September  22,  1808,  deceased  December  9, 
1880,  an  original  Reformer  of  New  York,  and  for  many  years 
an  honored  member  of  the  Onondaga  Conference.  Rev.  Nathan 
Ellis  of  the  Alabama  Conference,  deceased  May  15,  1883,  aged 
ninety-one  years,  an  original  Reformer.  Joseph  Wells  of  Wells- 
ville,  0.,  born  in  Pennsylvania,  March  21,  1798,  and  was  removed 
by  his  parents  in  infancy  to  where  the  town  of  Wellsville  now 
stands.  Converted  in  West  Liberty,  Va.,  1820,  he  in  1824  re- 
turned to  Wellsville,  where  he  spent  the  last  fifty-six  years  of 
his  useful  life.  He  opened  his  house  for  "  Radical "  preaching 
in  1829,  under  George  Brown,  and  a  church  was  organized.  For 
seven  years  before  this  time  he  had  regular  religious  services  at  his 
house,  refusing  to  unite  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  on 
account  of  its  government,  one  of  many  such  instances  in  its  early 
and  later  history.  He  was  a  representative  to  four  General  Con- 
ferences, two  Conventions,  and  fourteen  Annual  Conferences. 
Steadfast,  liberal,  devoted,  he  died  peacefully  December  1,  1882. 
Rev.  L.  F.  Cosby,  D.D.,  of  the  Virginia  Conference,  born  January 


602 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


14,  1807,  deceased  July  6,  1883,  in  his  seventy-sixth  year.  He 
espoused  the  cause  of  Reform  in  1827,  was  licensed  to  preach  in 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1828,  and  on  the  expulsions 
in  Baltimore  and  Lynchburg  he  united  his  fortunes  with  those 
ostracized  brethren;  entered  the  Virginia  Conference  in  1829, 
and  served  for  a  number  of  years;  faithful  in  all  relations  until 
1844,  when  he  located,  but  preserved  an  active  connection  with 
the  work  until  age  and  infirmity  compelled  retirement.  As  a 
preacher  he  was  of  the  old-time  school.  Thomas  Growden, 
April  14,  1883,  aged  eighty-three,  was  born  in  England,  but 
spent  his  life  in  the  Cumberland  valley  of  Pennsylvania,  as  did 
his  brother.  Rev.  John  Growden,  deceased  August  IG,  1883,  aged 
eighty-four.  They  were  original  Reformers  in  their  section  and 
worthy  men. 

Rev.  John  Burns,  D.D.,  born  April  10,  1808,  deceased  Sep- 
tember 12,  1883.  He  was  converted  in  his  eighteenth  year,  and 
united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at  Wheeling,  Va. 
In  December,  1832,  he  united  with  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church,  having  from  the  first  been  a  Reformer  in  principle.  He 
united  with  the  Ohio  Conference  in  1833,  and  served  a  mission 
near  Wheeling  for  a  salary  of  fifty  cents  for  the  year.  He  was 
afterward  identified  with  the  cause  in  the  West,  in  the  Pitts- 
burgh, Ohio,  and  Muskingum  Conferences.  He  was  a  member  of 
nearly  all  the  General  Conferences  from  1842,  and  was  a  pacificator 
during  the  separation  of  1858-77.  Of  commanding  presence,  clear 
intellect,  large  executive  ability,  he  easily  held  leadership  wher- 
ever he  was  recognized.  He  was  prominent  in  the  Union  Con- 
vention of  1877,  and  in  1878  was  appointed  chaplain  to  the 
penitentiary  at  Columbus,  0.,  and  served  for  a  number  of  years. 
He  was  honored  by  his  brethren,  and  was  faithful  to  his  convic- 
tions in  all  circumstances.  His  end  was  peace.  Rev.  John  Paris, 
D.D.,  was  born  in  North  Carolina,  September  1,  1809,  and  in 
1832  was  converted,  in  his  twenty-third  year,  and  united  with 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  his  preferences  being  with  the 
early  Reformers.  He  was  of  clear  intellect,  self-cultured,  de- 
voted, and  spiritual,  and  in  his  Conference  relations  was  a  strict 
expounder  of  the  Church  law.  In  1849  he  issued  a  "  History  " 
of  the  Church,  and  later  a  "Manual"  and  other  booklets,  while 
for  the  official  papers  he  was  a  voluminous  contributor  as  con- 
trovertist  and  expositor.  He  passed  away,  from  congestion  of 
the  brain,  October  27,  1883.  Rev.  J.  W.  Rutledge  deceased 
December  14,  1883,  well  known  in  the  early  history  of  the  Mary- 


BEFORMERS  BUILD  TWO  CHURCHES  A  WEEK  603 


land,  Pennsylvania,  and  afterward  of  the  Pittsburgh,  Conferences; 
merits  this  mention  for  fidelity  to  every  trust  committed  to  him. 

From  the  Year  Book  for  1883-84,  the  fact  is  furnished  by 
careful  investigation  that  the  Church  was  building  nearly  two 
houses  a  week,  as  well  as  twenty-two  parsonages  for  the  year. 
The  exact  percentage  was  1.85.  The  aggregate  membership  was 
now  about  125,000.  In  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  with 
a  reputed  membership  of  rising  two  millions,  the  number  of 
churches  built  a  week  for  1882-83  was  five.  Dr.  Scott,  editor  of 
the  Pittsburgh  official  paper,  made  a  tour  of  Annual  Conference 
visitations  in  the  autumn  of  1883.  The  fiftieth  session  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference  met  at  Eighteenth  Street  church,  south 
side,  as  a  semi-centennial  Conference,  for  which  a  programme 
commemorative  had  been  arranged.  It  was  participated  in  by 
Rev.  T.  H.  Colhouer  in  an  historical  address  on  the  Church;  Kev. 
James  Robison,  who  read  a  paper  on  the  history  of  the  Pitts- 
burgh Conference ;  and  Rev.  John  Gregory  presented  three  papers, 
covering  the  statistics  of  the  Conference  for  the  period  and  facts 
germane  to  the  celebration.  Rev.  David  Jones  delivered  a  sermon 
on  the  doctrinal  position  of  the  Church.  A  number  of  fraternal 
messengers  delivered  greetings.  In  the  midst  of  these  exercises 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Collier,  who  had  been  partially  paralyzed  some 
time  before,  was  carried  up  the  aisle  in  a  chair  and  seated  beside 
the  President,  Rev.  G.  G.  Westfall.  The  venerable  Collier  an- 
swered to  the  roll-call,  and  received  the  hearty  congratulations  of 
the  entire  body.  At  the  close  of  the  day  he  was  returned  to  his 
home  at  Sharpsburg,  Pa.  He  lingered  nearly  a  year  in  cheerful, 
hopeful  mood,  speaking  encouraging  words  to  his  numerous 
visitors,  until,  July  12,  1884,  he  passed  peacefully  away.  Wil- 
liam Collier  was  born  May  11,  1803,  in  Washington  County,  Md. ; 
united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1817  at  Hagers- 
town;  licensed  to  exhort  in  1822,  and  to  preach  in  1824.  He 
applied  himself  closely  to  study,  engaged  in  school-teaching,  and 
soon  became  a  good  English  scholar.  He  was  converted  to  the 
principle  of  Reform  by  reading  a  tract  written  by  Rev.  Ezekiel 
Cooper  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  on  lay-representation. 
Being  a  true  American,  as  well  as  a  true  Christian,  and  an  equally 
true  Methodist  in  doctrine  and  practice,  he  sympathized  with  the 
Expelled  brethren  of  Baltimore  in  1827,  and  a  righteous  indigna- 
tion led  to  his  withdrawal  from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
Fraternizing  with  the  Reformers,  he  was  by  them  licensed  to 
preach;  travelled  under  President  Henkle  of  the  Maryland  Con- 


604 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


ference  in  1830,  and  in  1831  was  formally  received.  Ordained 
deacon  and  elder,  he  rapidly  rose  as  an  efficient  and  zealous 
worker,  pursuing  his  studies  meantime,  until  he  could  read  and 
translate  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  German,  with  a  wide  acquaintance 
with  theology.  He  was  made  a  doctor  of  divinity  in  1861  by 
Waynesburg  College,  Pa.  Remaining  in  the  Maryland  Confer- 
ence until  1851,  then  its  President,  he  removed  to  the  Pittsburgh 
Conference,  and  took  a  commanding  position  in  it  for  the  re- 
mainder of  his  active  and  useful  life.  He  was  for  four  years 
President  of  that  body,  often  a  representative  to  the  General 
Conferences  and  Conventions  of  the  Church.  He  was  an  active 
participant  in  the  Western  movement  of  1858-74,  and  an  equally 
active  participant  in  the  union  movement  of  1874-77,  and  a 
member  of  the  historic  Convention  of  the  latter  year.  His  social 
qualities  were  of  a  high  order,  and  no  one  doubted  his  ingenuous 
character,  as  he  steadfastly  adhered  to  his  convictions  in  all  cir- 
cumstances. His  obsequies  were  held  in  the  Sharpsburg,  Pa., 
church,  where  he  long  resided,  and  his  remains  interred  in  Alle- 
gheny cemetery,  Pittsburgh.  Memorial  services  were  also  held 
in  the  Allegheny  church  by  Dr.  John  Scott,  August  31.  (For  a 
full  sketch  see  Colhouer's  "Founders,"  pp.  275-280.) 

The  call  to  invest  the  ensuing  General  Conference  with  Conven- 
tional powers  for  certain  specific  objects  was  acted  upon  by  the 
Annual  Conferences,  and,  as  will  be  seen,  approved  by  a  large 
majority.  It  had  been  fixed  for  Fairmont,  W.  Va.,  but  the  breth- 
ren of  that  vicinage,  as  the  time  arrived,  found  it  impracticable 
to  carry  the  hospitality  it  demanded,  and  there  being  no  provision 
of  the  Discipline  for  such  an  emergency,  by  the  suggestion  of  the 
editors  and  publishers  of  the  official  papers  and  the  Secretary 
of  the  last  General  Conference,  and  an  invitation  from  Baltimore, 
the  place  was  changed  accordingly.  Two  questions  engaged  both 
the  official  papers  through  the  months  preceding  the  assembly. 
Denominational  creed  and  doctrinal  liberty  in  the  Church  was 
discussed  by  Eev.  D.  S.  Stephens,  President  of  Adrian  College, 
as  suggested  by  the  note  appended  to  the  Articles  of  Religion  by 
the  last  Conference,  the  authority  for  which  he  questioned;  and 
the  non-participation  in  the  Ecumenical  Conference  of  the  Epis- 
copal Methodisms  now  matured  for  1884  in  Baltimore  city. 
Strong  men  wielded  their  pens  on  both  sides  of  these  questions; 
the  outcome  will  be  seen  later  in  this  History. 

At  no  period,  perhaps,  since  1830-35,  was  there  livelier  agita- 
tion and  more  healthful  ferment  throughout  the  Church.  All 


PERSONAL  SOVEREIGNTY  IN  CLERICS  AND  LAICS  605 


the  departments  of  Church  work  were  being  vigorously  pushed, 
and  an  auspicious  augur  was  the  activity  and  intelligent  progress 
made  by  the  women  of  it  in  missionary  enterprise,  with  centres 
in  Baltimore  and  Pittsburgh.  Revival  news  in  both  the  official 
papers  was  abundant;  the  rank  and  file  of  the  ministry,  now  so 
largely  reenforced  by  educated  young  men,  were  faithful  in  labors, 
with  an  aggressive  participation  in  Church  legislation,  it  being 
the  genius  of  Methodist  Protestantism  to  magnify  personal  sover- 
eignty both  in  clerics  and  laics.  The  peerage  of  democracy  is 
that  every  man  is  a  sovereign;  every  head  wears  a  crown.  It 
may  be  true  that  nine  of  the  ten  shall  be  clowns  instead  of  kings ; 
but  this  is  better  than  that  nine  should  be  slaves  and  one  a  kingly 
clown.  And  this  is  the  answer  to  all  allegations  of  the  mental 
unfitness  by  natural  constitution  and  defects  of  education  for 
government  of  the  average  member  of  the  Church,  or  a  member 
of  the  State.  The  trend  of  the  one  system  is  an  education  upward, 
while  that  of  the  other  is  an  education  downward ;  the  one  makes 
men,  the  other  makes  machines.  It  may  also  be  true  that  more 
can  be  urged  against  the  former  than  against  the  latter  as  a  work- 
ing hypothesis.  As  such,  there  is  nothing  in  the  State  like  the 
autocratic  rule  of  a  Caesar  or  a  Czar,  as  there  is  nothing  in  the 
Church  like  a  Pope  or  a  Prelate.  But  it  must  be  the  excuse  in  a 
preference  for  personal  sovereignty  that  it  was  what  the  Master 
taught,  what  the  Apostles  taught,  what  the  primitive  Church 
taught,  and  what  the  struggling  peoples  are  teaching  their  rulers 
the  world  over ;  a  struggle,  it  may  be  repeated,  that  will  not  end 
until  this  pyramid  stands  upon  its  base,  and  authority  shall  work 
from  the  many  to  the  few,  and  not  from  the  few  to  the  many. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  this  genius  carries  with  it  a  grave 
responsibility,  resting  with  greatest  weight  upon  the  teaching 
class,  and  this  may  be  the  opportune  time  for  its  larger  develop- 
ment, recognizing  its  philosophy  as  history  teaching  by  example. 
And  nearly  fifty  years  of  close  observation  by  the  writer  of  the 
ministry  and  laity  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  two-thirds 
of  it  being  in  the  active  pastorate,  satisfies  him  that  in  no  Protes- 
tant denomination  of  the  country  is  the  proverbial  saying,  like 
people  like  priest,  more  true  than  in  it.  Let  us  examine  it  in  the 
light  of  that  experience  as  a  working  hypothesis,  and  see  if  the 
secrets  of  its  alleged  defects  can  be  discovered  on  this  theory. 
The  members  of  this  Church,  with  a  nearer  approach  to  the  New 
Testament  priesthood  of  the  people  than  any  other  Methodism  at 
least,  as  set  forth  in  its  elementary  principles,  and  as  exemplified 


606 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


in  the  practical  workings  of  the  organization,  the  laity,  for  tlie 
most  part  intelligently  appreciative  of  the  polity  it  has  cham- 
pioned, are  as  open  to  reasonable  persuasion,  and  are  as  readily 
swayed  by  the  opinions  and  wishes  of  the  ministry,  as  any  other. 
It  is  true  that  this  Church  is  at  the  opposite  pole  of  all  hierarchies 
in  the  ecclesiastical  world,  and  it  is  freely  admitted  that  these 
forms  have  all  the  advantages  that  go  with  absolutism  under  all 
its  types  and  modifications.  Among  them,  like  people  like  priest, 
is  true,  because  they  are  made  so  by  authority.  To  be  invested 
with  it  is  one  of  the  fallen  ambitions  lurking  in  every  human 
breast;  and  the  temptation  is  open  to  those  who,  espousing  a 
system  like  its  own,  in  which  the  equality  of  manhood  is  asserted, 
whenever  their  convictions  as  to  methods,  either  for  the  reform 
of  manifest  evils,  or  the  adoption  of  higher  aims  and  practices, 
are  crossed,  to  look  with  admiration,  if  not  with  desire,  upon  the 
hierarchical  methods,  which,  like  the  Alexandrian  sword,  spurns 
the  slow  processes  of  untying,  and  cuts  with  one  sharp  swish  these 
Gordian  knots.  Hence  the  fact  —  does  it  disclose  a  secret?  — 
it  is  sometimes  said  by  brethren  when  in  one  of  these  moods : 
"Methodist  Protestantism  is  not  adapted  to  the  masses."  It 
demands  careful  analysis.  Is  it  true?  Only  as  it  is  true  that 
popular  suffrage  is  not  adapted  to  the  masses,  and  a  kindred 
temptation  comes,  when  the  abuse  of  suffrage  is  observed  to 
un- Americanize  citizenship ;  or  as  it  is  true  that  Christianity  is 
not  adapted  to  the  masses  because  its  essential  air  is  freedom  in 
the  whole  circle  of  its  applications,  and  its  adaptation  is  only  seen 
when  it  seizes  one  of  these  "  masses  "  and  educationally  lifts  him 
up  to  the  plane  of  its  own  movement  and  to  the  rhythm  of  its 
own  music.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  —  and  no  excuse  need 
be  made  for  the  frequent  use  of  this  analogue  —  as  a  hierarchy  is 
the  perfect  ideal  of  effectiveness  in  its  methods.  From  the  Pope 
downward  there  is  absolutely  no  individual  freedom ;  the  Pope 
himself  is  but  a  part  of  the  machine.  All  the  actors,  of  what- 
ever dignity  in  the  government,  are  but  puppets  in  the  show — cogs 
in  the  wheels  within  wheels,  in  which  the  adaptation  is  complete 
as  it  moves  with  noiseless  momentum;  and  anything  that  falls 
between  these  cogs  is  simply  crunched  and  powdered  and  cast  out, 
and  the  silent  majesty  of  authority  reigns.  It  cannot  be  other- 
wise than  that  everything  takes  its  complexion  from  the  primary 
color  A  brother,  therefore,  who  suffers  such  an  admission  as 
just  cited  to  fall  from  his  lips  cannot  speak  advisedly ;  for  ask  him 
if  he  is  in  fellowship  with  such  an  arrangement,  and  the  very 


RATIONALE  OF  REFORM  PRINCIPLES  607 


love  of  the  individual  freedom  he  knows  he  enjoys  as  a  registered 
advocate  of  the  antipodal  system  draws  from  him  an  almost  in- 
dignant repudiation.  Ask  him  further,  if  any  system  whose 
inevitable  tendencies  are  in  the  same  direction  is  best,  and  again 
he  hesitates,  and,  closely  pushed  for  answer,  the  sense  of  the 
equality  of  manhood,  which  he  claims  for  himself,  prevails.  His 
mood  for  the  hour  is  simply  the  outcome  of  his  experience  with 
some  of  the  "masses"  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church;  he 
has  been  under  trial,  and  has  seen  the  free  will  of  the  brethren 
in  some  special  case  degenerate  into  wilfulness,  and  for  the  nonce 
he  is  discouraged.  The  struggle  simply  means  that  this,  as  in 
everything  touching  the  elevation  of  a  fallen  race,  involves  a 
lifting  process,  a  Sisyphus  stone  that  must  be  rolled  up  the  hill 
every  time  it  falls  back.  Those  who  engage  for  the  right,  like 
those  who  engage  for  the  gospel,  must  take  this  into  the  account 
when  they  enter  upon  the  contest. 

The  contention  then  is  that,  in  great  measure,  the  failures  noted 
as  to  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  system,  and  the  consequent 
discordances  observed  occasionally  in  the  practical  working  of 
its  methods,  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  educational  side  of  this 
superior  system  has  been  neglected  by  the  teaching  class.  The 
ministers  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  have  had  to  deplore 
the  numerous  instances  in  which  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
"fathers"  and  founders  of  this  Church  have  sought  Church 
homes,  not  in  other  denominations  only,  but  in  the  very  ecclesi- 
asticism  from  which  those  fathers  suffered  expulsion  for  opinions' 
sake.  Not  so  only,  but  there  are  not  lacking  instances  of  the 
children  of  its  ministers  forsaking  the  Church  home  in  which  they 
were  reared.  Wherefore?  The  answer  comes  from  one  of  the 
worthy  elders  of  the  Church:  "I  have  known  more  than  one 
minister  who  has  this  trouble  upon  his  hands,  whose  children 
have  told  me  that  their  father  was  such  a  chronic  grumbler  that 
they  never  heard  him  commend  the  Church  to  their  consideration, 
but  they  had  learned  almost  to  hate  it;  for,  said  they,  we  hear 
nothing  but  father's  growlings  about  the  membership,  and  if  they 
are  half  as  bad  as  he  makes  them  out  to  be,  we  do  not  care  to 
know  anything  more  of  them;  and  this  by  men  living  at  her 
altars,  and  who  are  reaping  more  than  they  ever  sowed."  Every 
Conference  has  examples  of  this  kind,  and  it  points  one  of  the 
remedies  clearly.  Teach  them  your  own  professed  convictions, 
and  they  will  not  lightly  esteem  them  when  you  are  gone.  If 
you  have  no  convictions,  which  is  tantamount  to  admitting  that 


608  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


you  have  never  cared,  and  never  examined  whether  you  are  right 
or  wrong,  then  it  may  be  that  you  have  gotten  into  the  wrong  pew, 
or  are  making  a  mere  convenience  of  a  serious  Church  organiza- 
tion having  for  its  two  pillars  —  its  Jachin  and  Boaz  —  the  sal- 
vations of  souls  under  a  priesthood  of  "all  ye  are  brethren." 

Great  sacrifices  are  required  of  such  a  ministry  and  such  a 
people,  it  is  true ;  all  things  of  value  based  upon  principles  are 
costly,  and  it  is  also  true  that  in  the  largest  proportion  the 
ministry  and  the  laity  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  are 
rendering  them.  But  the  insistence  is  that  where  inequality  of 
burden-bearing  exists,  as  between  the  ministers  and  the  churches 
they  serve,  the  explanation  is  found  in  the  very  maxim,  like 
people  like  priest,  more  fully  than  there  is  a  willingness  to  admit. 
Are  they  deficient  in  the  support  of  the  ministry?  It  is  not  be- 
lieved that  they  are  more  so,  where  other  things  are  equal,  than 
is  the  common  and  crying  fault  with  all  the  denominations ;  and 
if  so,  what  is  the  ministry  doing,  not  of  pulpit  scolding  and 
browbeating,  but  of  kindly,  earnest  presentation  of  the  gospel  of 
Christian  beneficence,  line  upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept? 
Are  the  general  interests  languishing  —  those  things  without 
which  denominational  existence  is  a  parody,  and  which  denomi- 
nationalism  means  in  turn :  organized  work  for  Christ,  whether 
it  is  Ministerial  Education,  or  Colleges  for  children  and  students 
of  theology,  or  Publishing  Interests,  the  synonym  of  a  denomi- 
national literature  for  the  people  and  their  children,  or  the 
Foreign  Missionary  work,  or  Church  Extension?  Like  people 
like  priest,  is  replied;  or  else  why  is  it  that  a  class  of  these  pas- 
tors, labor  where  they  may,  bring  the  assessments  for  these  pur- 
poses, while  another  class,  labor  where  they  may,  are  always 
deficient?  These  things  are  facts  notorious  in  all  the  Confer- 
ences. Is  it  your  habit  to  respect  conference  resolves  as  to  these 
interests,  or  do  you  slur  them  over,  or,  worse,  denounce  them  at 
the  firesides  of  the  people  as  excessive?  There  is  abundant  evi- 
dence that  whenever  the  pastors  in  a  business-like  and  rational 
manner  set  before  the  people  a  cause  worthy  of  their  liberality, 
they  respond  in  the  measure  of  their  ability,  if  not  upon  the  first 
trial,  then  upon  the  second,  or  the  final  appeal.  How  greatly  the 
people  need  elevating,  instructing,  and  liberalizing  requires  no 
homily,  and  it  is  also  known  how  greatly  the  pastors  need  the 
same,  or  otherwise  it  would  not  be  so  true  as  it  is,  that  this 
Church,  like  all  others,  is  what  its  pastors  make  it! 

Worthington  G.  Snethen,  son  of  Rev.  Nicholas  Snethen,  de- 


HON.  BENIAn  S.  BIBB,  DECEASED  609 

parted  this  life  March  16,  1884,  at  Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  in  his 
eightieth  year.  Removing  to  that  town  in  1867,  he  found  him- 
self without  his  father's  Church,  as  no  organization  then  existed, 
happily  since  supplied,  but  up  to  this  period  he  was  identified 
with  it,  and  while  residing  in  Washington,  D.  C,  threw  himself 
with  all  the  influence  he  could  command  into  the  recuperation  of 
the  cause  at  the  Ninth  Street  church,  which  under  reverses  had 
languished.  The  voluminous  literary  remains  of  his  father,  which 
he  edited  and  largely  rewrote  for  the  press,  have  been  before  re- 
ferred to  as  in  the  possession  of  the  Pittsburgh  Book  Concern. 
Hon.  Beniah  S.  Bibb  deceased  February  10,  1884,  in  the  eighty- 
eighth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  born  in  Georgia,  September  30, 
1796,  and  received  a  liberal  education  and  entered  upon  the  prac- 
tice of  the  law.  Converted  in  1822,  he  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  but  embraced  the  principles  of  Reform,  and 
in  1830  united  with  the  new  Church.  He  removed  to  Mont- 
gomery, Ala.,  and  in  1825  was  elected  Judge  of  the  Probate 
Court,  a  position  he  filled  until  1844,  when  he  was  elected  Judge 
of  the  Criminal  Court  of  Montgomery,  and  served  until  the  close 
of  the  Civil  War.  He  was  often  elected  to  the  legislature  and  to 
the  State  senate.  If  thus  prominent  as  a  civilian,  he  was  none  the 
less  so  as  a  churchman.  His  convictions  were  deep-seated,  and 
he  remained  firm  to  the  Church  of  his  choice  to  the  end,  with  his 
faithful  wife,  who  was  a  daughter  of  Governor  Gilmer,  and  known 
through  life  by  her  friends,  in  the  Church  and  out  of  it,  as  "  Miss 
Sophy."  A  delegate  to  almost  every  session  of  the  Alabama 
Conference  from  1830,  as  also  of  the  General  Conferences  of 
1842,  1856,  1874,  and  of  the  Union  Convention  of  1877,  he  died 
universally  respected,  and  his  end  was  peace.  Tall,  erect,  his 
splendid  character  grew  with  his  widening  reputation,  and  his 
name  in  the  Church  is  as  ointment  poured  forth. 

VOL.  u  —  2  a 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 


The  Fourteenth  General  Conference,  Baltimore,  May,  1884;  roster  of  members; 
Rev,  W.  S.  Hammond,  President;  styled  "a  General  Convention"  in  the  title- 
page  of  Minutes,  but  it  was  such  only  as  to  certain  specific  changes,  otherwise 
it  was  a  General  Conference  only  in  legislative  powers  —  Union  with  Cumber- 
land Presbyterians;  a  default  through  the  common  cause;  opposition  of  its 
officialism  ;  also  with  the  Congregational  Methodists  —  The  W.  F.  M.  S.  at  the 
Conference  —  Book  Concerns ;  reports ;  restrictive  rule  compromise ;  ordination 
of  Anna  M.  Shaw  by  the  New  York  Conference ;  consequences ;  Mrs.  Eugenia  F. 
St.  John  ;  was  the  action  legal?  a  moot ;  Commissioners  sent  to  the  Centennial 
Conference  of  American  Methodisras;  what  they  did;  Union  predictions  un- 
verified ;  organic  Union  a  dream  ;  statistics  —  Curious  things  anent  Episcopacy 
—  Publication  of  Sunday-school  supplies  given  to  Pittsburgh;  the  terms  and 
obligations  involved  —  Centenary  of  Episcopal  Methodism  in  Baltimore;  Meth- 
odist Protestant  Commissioners;  queries;  results  of  the  Centenary  in  the 
Church,  North  and  South;  laymen  — Obituaries  of  Reformers;  Laishley  and 
others ;  noble  exceptions  made  in  necrology ;  still  others ;  Thomson  and  Bassett. 

The  Fourteenth  General  Conference  convened  at  St.  John's 
church,  Liberty  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.,  at  10  o'clock  a.m., 
May  16,  1884.  It  was  called  to  order  by  the  President  of  the 
Conference  of  1880,  with  religious  services,  W.  S.  Hammond,  Sec- 
retary. The  Committee  on  Credentials  reported  the  following  as 
entitled  to  seats  as  representatives :  — 


Alabama 


Ministers 
E.  K.  Moore 
W.  J.  Nolen 


Laymen 
C.  E.  Crenshaw 
L.  W.  Jenkins  1 


Arkansas 


M.  C.  Jackson 


Jeff.  Wallace  1 


Central  Texas 


G.  P.  Miller  1 


P.  D.  Henklei 


Deep  River 


R.  R.  Brookshier 


E.  L.  McHargue 


Georgia 


F.  H.  M.  Henderson 


W.  M.  Bray 


1  Absent. 
610 


GENERAL  CONVENTION (^f)  OF  1884 


Ministers 
S.  A.  Baker 


H.  Stackhouse 
J.  M.  Langley 
F.  M.  Hussey 

I.  H.  C.  McKinney 
S.  J.  Jones 


Wm.  Remsburg 
J.  Selby 


H.  S.  Swetnam 


W.  F.  Bonhami 


L.  W.  Bates 
J.  T.  Murray 
W.  S.  Hammond 
S.  B.  Southerland 
F.  T.  Tagg 
J.  J.  Murray 
J.  D.  Kinzer 
T.  H.  Lewis 
T.  D.  Valiant 
E.  J.  Drinkhouse 


T.  T.  Ferree 
R.  H.  Wills 
T.  J.  Ogburn 
W.  W.  Amick 
J.  L.  Michaux 
A.  W.  Lineberry 
A.  C.  Harris 
J.  R.  Balli 


G.  B.  McElroy 
A.  C.  Fuller 


Genesee 


Indiana 


Iowa 


Kentucky 


Laymen 
G.  W.  Doty 

N.  H.  Jones 
S.  L.  Marrow 
P.  W.  Patterson 
J.  D.  Stopher 
W.  A.  Quick  1 


Virgil  Roberts  1 
S.  G.  Russell 


D.  M.  Dilleoni 


McCaine  (Texas) 


Maryland 


J.J.  Hefflini 


J.  W.  Hering 
C.  W.  Button 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
J.  D.  Baker 
W.  B.  Usilton 
Horace  Burrough 
S.  S.  Ewell 
John  Mason 
J.  W.  Thompson 
H.  F.  Zollickoffer 


North  Carolina 


Michigan 


S.  V.  Pickens  1 
J.  M.  Hadley 
W.  C.  Whitaker 
J.  C.  Roberts 
J.  L.  Ogburn  i 
J.  A.  Holt 
S.  R.  Harris  i 
J.  F.  Harris! 


A.  A.  Rust 
J.  S.  Duffie  1 


J.  S.  Scarborough! 


Mississippi 


1  Absent. 


M.  D.  Etheridgei 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  EEFORM 


Ministers 
W.  R.  Sweet  1 

A.  A.  Kerani 


S.  A.  Fisher 

J.  S.  Thrap 

G.  W.  Hissey 

O.  V.  W.  Chandler 

F.  A.  Browu 

W.  L.  Wells 

J.  H.  Hamilton 


J.  J.  Smith 
Mark  Staple 

T.  B.  Appleget 


John  Scott 
G.  G.  Westfall 
W.  H.  Phipps 
John  Cowl  1 


A.  G.  Bloomfield 
E.  T.  Hudson 


W.  W.  Williams 
V.  H.  Brown 


B.  T.  Weeks  i 


G.  0.  Hickeyi 


J.  B.  Walker 
T.  B.  Graham 
D.  S.  Stephens 
S.  K.  Spahr 


Minnesota 

MiSSOUBI 

Muskingum 


New  York 


New  Jersey 


Pittsburgh 


Laymen 
W.  Staufferi 


D.  B.  Biddlei 


M.  Tingling 
W.  E.  Case 
Thos.  Chambers 
Vincent  Ferguson  ^ 
Thos.  Smith 
W.  L.  Trennor  i 
W.  E.  H.  Hartsock 


Benj.  Harding  1 
Arnet  Seaman 


John  Z.  Stanger 


J.  S.  Barnes 
H.  C.  Swart 
J.  P.  Sayer 
G.  W.  Pogue 


Pennsylvania 


Joseph  Anderson 


Nebraska 


S.  W.  McGrew 


North  Illinois 

A.  R.  Borton 
C.  P.  Crum 

North  Mississippi 

W.  C.  Carter  I 

North  Arkansas 

J.  McLemore* 


Ohio 


1  Absent. 


Wm.  W.  White  1 
Jordan  Downs 
G.  W.  Kent  i 
Thompson  Douglass 


ROSTER  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 


Ministers 
G.  D.  Ellis 

J.  Q.  Stockman  ^ 


D.  B.  Turney 
G.  C.  Smith  i 


Joseph  Camper 
M.  F.  Rosser 


G.  R.  Barr 
John  G.  Johnson 


L.  D.  Abbott 


George  Nestor 
H.  P.  F.  King 
E.  F.  Westfall 
M.  S.  Barnett 
J.  J.  Poynteri 
D.  H.  Davis 
D.  G.  Helmick 
A.  L.  McKeever 
Benj.  Stout 


J.  A.  Fowler 

J.  E.  Loudermilk  i 

Thos.  Wells 
Wm.  Trogden 
G.  N.  Barge  i 


Onondaga 

South  Carolina 
South  Illinois 

Tennessee 

Texas 
Virginia 


Laymen 
N.  J.  Fields 


J.  W.  Pevyi 

Jas.  A.  Linki 
David  A.  Reed 

Wm.  E.  Thompson 
J.  J.  Morris  1 


J.  A.  McQuown  ^ 
Ira  P.  Robinett  i 


West  Michigan 


Wm.  Woodwards 

West  Virginia 

J.  W.  Williams 
W.  F.  Post 
G.  W.  Reay  i 
J.  B.  Watson  1 
Reason  Cain  i 
F.  M.  Durbin  i 
Wm.  Mearns 
J.  W.  Hull 
J.  N.  Pierpont 

West  Tennessee 

J.  Thomas! 

Western  Arkansas 

S.  A.  Reppyi 

Baltimore  (Col.) 

Perry  Gray 


Red  River 


W.  R.  Hefflini 


Georgia  (Col.) 


J.  M.  Smith  1 


1  Absent. 


614 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Fort  Smith 
Ministers  Laymen 

W.  S.  Bartholomew  H.  N.  Sanders  ^ 

Kansas 

Daniel  Young 

Out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-one,  fifty  were  not  present. 
It  will  be  observed  that  these  were  mostly  from  extreme  dis- 
tances. As  it  was  the  original  purpose  of  the  framers  of  the  Con- 
stitution to  keep  this  legislative  assembly  of  the  Church  within 
one  hundred,  it  was  considerably  overreached.  It  was  an  impos- 
ing representation  of  the  general  Church  in  all  its  sections,  this 
and  the  color  line  having  been  both  wiped  out. 

Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  pastor  of  St.  John's,  made  an  address  of  wel- 
come in  behalf  of  the  congregation,  the  citizens  of  Baltimore, 
and  the  Maryland  Conference,  to  which  the  acting  President 
responded.  The  election  for  permanent  officers  occurred  at  the 
afternoon  session,  after  some  fruitless  balloting,  at  the  open 
suggestion  of  a  Western  minister,  naming  the  acting  Secretary 
for  the  position,  against  the  precedents  of  the  body.  William 
S.  Hammond  was  chosen  President  against  his  personal  protest; 
and  S.  K.  Spahr,  Secretary. 

The  printed  Minutes  of  this  Conference  make  a  pamphlet  of 
ninety-six  octavo  pages;  but  its  salient  business  may  be  com- 
pressed into  much  briefer  space,  as  much  of  its  time  was  occupied 
with  the  presentation  of  papers  on  revision,  and  various  matters 
of  reference  to  committees  with  negative  action,  the  Standing 
Committees,  as  appointed  by  the  President,  doing  their  work 
with  thoroughness  and  despatch.  Xote  will  be  made  of  the 
essential  matters  of  report  and  legislation;  disciplinary  changes, 
etc.,  may  be  found  in  the  revised  Discipline  of  even  date. 

Rev.  Dr.  Augustus  Webster  and  A.  H.  Bassett,  by  invitation, 
addressed  the  Conference  on  historical  lines  with  much  favor. 
A  final  report  from  the  Committee  on  Conventional  Powers,  after 
various  references  and  votes  by  the  body,  rehearsed  that  the 
action  of  the  Annual  Conferences  was  not  uniform;  but  they 
found  that  "  for  powers  according  to  the  General  Conference  reso- 
lutions  of  1880  "  ^  twenty-five  Conferences,  or  a  majority  of  two- 

1  Absent. 

2  A  critical  examination  of  these  resolutions,  as  well  as  an  analysis  of  the  votes 
of  the  Conferences  subsequently  on  them,  as  fouud  in  the  2»Iiuutes  of  1S84,  make 


FUTILE  ''UNION''  PROPOSALS 


615 


thirds,  were  in  favor.  The  report  was  adopted.  The  Hymn  Book 
Committee  of  fifteen,  appointed  by  the  last  General  Conference, 
reported  their  action,  which  was  approved.  A  correspondence 
between  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church,  growing  out  of  the 
presence  at  the  Conference  of  1880  of  Rev.  Dr.  Black,  was  sub- 
mitted, suggesting  organic  Union  of  the  two  Churches.  It  was 
reciprocated,  and  commissioners  were  appointed  by  this  body  to 
consider  its  advisability.  Their  General  Assembly  was  now  in 
session  at  McKeesport,  Pa.,  and  telegraphic  messages  were  sent 
and  received.  There  was  quite  a  popular  feeling  in  both  Churches 
in  favor  of  this  movement,  the  doctrinal  differences  being  unim- 
portant and  the  governmental  structure  practically  the  same ;  hope 
was  entertained  that  for  once  something  tangible  would  come  of 
the  proposition.  The  two  Churches  were  numerically  nearly  the 
same,  and  other  interests  quadrated.  But  after  the  respective 
assemblies  had  adjourned,  the  official  organ  of  the  Cumberlands, 
at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  made  open  and  strong  objection  to  the  pro- 
posal, with  the  result  that  once  more  officialism  killed  what 
might  have  been  the  will  of  the  membership,  if  the  work  of  the 
commission  had  been  encouraged  to  go  on  for  its  ascertainment. 
As  it  was,  in  Texas  and  some  other  places,  local  churches  did 
unite.  It  may  surprise  some  other  later  advocates  of  Union 
among  Methodists  that  the  name  was  one  of  the  principal  diffi- 
culties of  adjustment,  as  tentatively  mooted.  It  was  natural,  as 
no  denomination  that  has  struggled  to  recognition  among  the 
Churches  is  willing  to  be  extinguished  under  a  name  that  does  not 
continue  to  recognize  it.  A  similar  movement  was  inaugurated  by 
this  General  Conference  appointing  a  Commission  of  five  to  enter 
into  correspondence  with  the  Congregational  Methodists  with 
"a  proposition  of  Union  of  that  Church  with  our  own,"  etc.^ 

it  plain  and  indisputable  that  "conventional  powers"  would  have  been  defeated 
by  a  strong  majority,  except  those  favoring  it  under  the  strict  limitations  imposed ; 
namely,  a  new  method  of  constitutional  changes  in  the  future,  a  change  of  the 
restrictive  rule,  and  the  harmonizing  of  any  sections  of  the  extant  Discipline  not 
in  accord  with  each  other.  So  that  anything  else  this  body  of  1884  did,  it  did  as 
a  General  Conference,  and  not  as  a  General  Convention.  The  point  is  of  vital 
importance,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  moot  raised  on  a  later  action  of  this  body. 
It  is,  however,  always  styled  a  "  General  Convention  "  in  the  technical  references 
of  the  Minutes  and  on  the  title-page,  —  the  moot  is,  by  what  authority? 

1  "Constitution  and  Government  of  the  Congregational  Methodist  Churches." 
3d  edition.  Opelika,  Ala.  1873.  32mo.  64  pp.  Cloth.  An  examination  shows 
that  it  was  organized  in  1852,  by  certain  brethren  who  withdrew  from  the  M.  E. 
Church,  South,  and  a  few  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  one  of  its  lead- 
ers, Eppes  Tucker,  having  been  an  original  minister  in  the  organization  and  a 


616 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


It  is  now  believed  feasible  because  of  the  change  made  by  the 
Conference,  giving  Annual  Conferences  control  of  the  time  limit, 
—  the  only  remaining  difference  between  the  general  church  law 
and  the  Congregational  theory.  But  it  came  to  naught  —  a  few 
fraternal  interchanges  and  individual  transfers  of  membership, 
with  the  ministers,  was  all  that  could  be  secured.  Again  official- 
ism killed  it,  as  their  paper  at  Cave  Spring,  Ga.,  did  not  favor 
it,  and  their  leading  brethren  looked  askance. 

Mrs.  F.  A.  Brown,  Mrs.  A.  R.  O'Brien,  and  Mrs.  M.  A.  Miller 
were  introduced  as  representatives  of  the  executive  board  of  the 
Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Church.^  They 
were  invited  to  seats  within  the  bar,  and  received  other  formal 
recognition.  Adrian,  Mich.,  was  selected  as  the  place  for  the 
next  General  Conference.  The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Pub- 
lishing Houses  submitted  the  reports  of  the  two  Directories,  from 
which  the  following  items  are  culled.  Circulation  of  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant,  February  29,  1884,  3424;  circulation,  February 
28,  1883,  3122;  net  gain,  302;  new  names,  772;  discontinued, 
470.  Sabbath-school  papers,  May  1,  1884,  58,984;  May  1,  1883, 
39,240;  net  gain,  19,744.  Methodist  Recorder,  circulation,  March 
1,  1884,  4820;  March  1,  1883,  4954;  loss,  1243;  new  subscribers 
1109;  net  loss,  134.  Circulation  of  Our  Morning  Guide,  9000; 
Child's  Recorder,  4600.  Baltimore  Directory,  net  assets,  March 
1,  1884,  $9401.98;  Pittsburgh  Directory,  March  1,  1884,  net  capi- 
tal, $20,865.87,  of  which  the  Book  Room  realty  is  appraised  at 
$19,071.64.  The  Conference  elected  for  Directory  at  Baltimore: 
H.  F.  Zollickoffer,  J.  T.  Murray,  Horace  Burrough,  J.  D.  Kinzer, 
and  J.  G.  Clarke.  At  Pittsburgh :  John  Gregory,  J.  S.  Thrap, 
John  Munden,  W.  K.  Gillespie,  and  F.  M.  Durbin.    H.  F.  Zol- 

member  of  the  Convention  of  1830.  They  withdrew  from  the  Church,  South  for 
three  principal  reasons,  —  the  restrictive  rule  over  pastors,  its  unrepublican  gov- 
ernment, and  taxation  without  representation.  They  organized  sporadically  in 
various  sections  of  the  South,  principally  in  Georgia  and  Alabama,  until  within 
thirty  years  they  claimed  to  number  some  ten  thousand  members.  They  main- 
tained an  official  organ.  The  Civil  "War  greatly  disintegrated  them,  but  they 
bravely  rallied  their  scattered  forces.  The  lack  of  connectional  bonds,  of  preach- 
ers and  means,  retarded  their  growth,  so  that  in  the  past  ten  years  they  have 
gradually  declined.  The  elementary  principles  of  the  M.  P.  Church  were  embodied 
by  them  almost  without  change.  A  number  of  their  societies  have  coalesced,  and 
ministers  individually ;  and  the  process  of  disintegration  is  going  on  to  their 
probable  ultimate  extinction. 

1  "  History  of  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church,"  by  Mrs.  M.  A.  Miller.  18%.  W.  F.  M.  S.,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
12mo.  140  pp.  Cloth.  A  digest  of  this  work  is  found  as  an  Appendix  to  the 
first  volume  of  this  History  from  the  pen  of  Mrs.  Miller. 


«^ 

.2  o 
5  bo 


a  to 
1»  1* 

O  (U  Cfl  ^ 
O     ^  3 

2  5„« 


(U  bo 


a  ^ 


5S 

4> 


ORDINATION  OF  WOMEN 


617 


lickoffer  elected  President  and  W.  K.  Gillespie,  Secretary. 
Among  the  orders  given  by  the  Conference  was  the  consolidation 
of  the  Sunday-school  papers  under  a  separate  editor.  E.  J. 
Drinkhouse  was  elected  Editor  of  the  Baltimore  papers,  and  Wm. 
J.  C.  Dulany,  Publisher  and  Book  Agent;  and  of  the  Pittsburgh 
papers,  John  Scott,  Editor,  and  W.  McCracken,  Jr.,  Publisher 
and  Book  Agent.  The  Eestrictive  Eule  was  changed  so  as  to 
read,  "  No  rule  shall  be  passed  to  abolish  an  efficient  itinerant 
ministry;  each  Annual  Conference  shall  have  authority  to  deter- 
mine for  itself  whether  any  limit,  or,  if  any,  what  limit,  shall  be 
to  the  annual  appointments."  It  was  in  the  nature  of  a  compro- 
mise between  the  adherents  and  opponents  of  such  a  rule.  The 
liberty  it  gave  to  the  Annual  Conferences  has  worked  well.  For 
the  most  part  they  have  passed  a  limitation  of  from  three  to  five 
years,  except  in  Maryland  and  a  few  other  Conferences.  The 
practical  result  has  been  that  the  average  changes  have  been 
nearly  as  frequent  as  under  the  old  regulation.  It  made  provi- 
sion for  exceptional  cases,  and  in  a  few  of  the  cities  the  extended 
time  has  worked  to  the  advantage  of  the  Church. 

The  Committee  on  Journals  reported  that  "  at  the  fifty-first 
session  of  the  New  York  Conference,  Miss  Anna  M.  Shaw  was 
elected  to  Elder's  orders,  and  received  ordination."  It  was 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Judiciary,  who  subsequently 
reported  as  follows :  "  We  report  the  act  unauthorized  by  the  law 
of  the  Church,  and  that  she  is  not  entitled  to  recognition  as  an 
Elder  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church."  A  long  debate  oc- 
curred upon  it,  and  it  was  finally  adopted.  She  continued  to 
exercise  as  an  Elder,  the  New  York  Conference  sustaining  their 
act  as  such.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  question  recurred  in  the 
General  Conference  of  1892,  by  its  recognizing  Mrs.  Eugenia  F. 
St.  John  as  an  Elder,  and  representative  in  the  body  from  the 
Kansas  Conference.  The  contention  was  made  that  this  act  was 
void,  inasmuch  as  the  legislative  assembly  of  1884  had  pro- 
nounced Miss  Shaw's  ordination  as  an  Elder  unconstitutional  — 
that  it  was  a  "  General  Convention  "  act,  and,  as  such,  no  subse- 
quent "  General  Conference  "  could  nullify  that  deliverance.  See 
the  moot  raised  in  a  recent  footnote,  and  the  query  stands  to 
this  day :  Were  all  the  enactments  of  the  body  of  1884  "  Gen- 
eral Convention"  actions,  or  only  the  three  to  which  that  "  General 
Conference  "  was  limited,  as  being  invested  with  "  Conventional 
powers  "  ?  If  the  latter,  then  the  deliverance  it  made  as  to  Miss 
Shaw  could  be  nullified  by  the  later  deliverance  of  1892  as  to 


618 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Mrs.  St.  John.  The  writer  affirms  only  that,  as  a  moot,  it  cannot 
be  settled  by  asseveration  simply  on  either  side.^ 

The  Reformed  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States  of 
America  was  formally  recognized,  and  fraternal  messengers  ap- 
pointed to  its  next  General  Council.  The  Committee  on  Frater- 
nal Eelations  reported  that  the  brethren  appointed  to  correspond 
with  the  Wesleyan,  the  New  Connexion,  and  the  Primitive 
Methodists  of  England  had  done  so,  and  replies  received  from 
each;  that  of  the  Xew  Connexion  being  beautifully  engrossed, 
and  is  appended  to  the  minutes  of  this  Conference.  The  Com- 
mittee on  Missions  reported  that  for  the  quadrennium  ^  17, 395. 28 
had  been  collected,  and  nearly  SoOOO  for  the  Japan  Home.  The 
aggregate  expenses  for  this  period,  except  for  missionaries,  was 
$4839.26.  Paid  to  missions  in  this  country,  $4787.25;  for  for- 
eign work,  $6703.72.  The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society 
reported  that  it  had  raised,  for  the  five  years  of  its  existence, 
about  $11,000;  $2400  of  this  is  a  building  fund,  and  the  re- 
mainder in  the  treasury,  in  addition  to  this  fund,  is  $2083.31. 
A  constitution  for  the  Board  of  Missions  and  one  for  the  Woman's 
Foreign  Missionary  Society  were  adopted.  The  relations  of  the 
two  were  defined.  The  Board  of  Ministerial  Education  reported 
net  assets,  $5021.76.  Westminster  Theological  Seminary  build- 
ing, $4000;  indebtedness,  $1200.  The  Theological  School  at 
Adrian  was  advised,  as  soon  as  possible,  to  secure  the  undivided 
services  of  the  Dean,  Rev.  Dr.  G.  B.  McElroy.  A  new  constitu- 
tion for  the  Board  of  Education  was  adopted.    Rev.  F.  T.  Tagg 

1  In  reply  to  an  article  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  acting  as  editor  pro  tern,  of 
the  Baltimore  paper,  October  25,  1884,  in  which  he  cites  Church  law  as  against 
the  contention  that  anything  but  the  expunging  of  the  word  "  white  "  was  in  the 
mind  of  the  brethren  in  the  radical  change  made  in  the  Twelfth  Article  of  the 
Constitution  in  1877,  Rev.  T.  B.  Appleget  of  the  New  Jersey  Conference,  November 
1,  1884,  affirms  that  the  expunging  of  the  word  "male,"  in  the  section  elided, 
"  Every  white,  male  member,"  was  considered  by  the  "Methodist"  Convention 
as  well.  On  this  the  whole  controversy  hinges.  It  was  the  only  place  in  the 
Constitution  or  Discipline  in  which  the  word  "male"  occurred;  and  it  is  true 
that  when  it,  as  well  as  the  word  "  white,"  was  expunged  by  the  abolition  of  the 
entire  Article  XII.,  both  words  went  out  together.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
word  "laymen"  remains  in  the  definition  of  eligible  members  to  the  General 
Conference  and  "the  husband  of  one  wife"  in  the  ordination  service,  indicating 
that  the  excision  of  the  word  "  male  "  with  the  word  "  white  "  was  a  mere  acci- 
dent of  the  situation,  and  not  the  intent  of  the  "General  Convention."  It  was 
certainly  not  in  the  mind  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Convention  at  the  time,  so 
that  whatever  advantage  may  be  taken  of  the  absence  of  the  word  "male  "  is 
technical,  and  not  conventional.  Some  things,  however,  are  settled  by  manifest 
destiny,  and  the  ordination  and  delegated  elective  character  of  women  in  the 
Methodisms  of  the  world  come  under  the  category. 


COMPARISON  OF  STATISTICS 


619 


was  elected  Corresponding  Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Home  and 
Foreign  Missions,  and  J.  B.  Walker  to  the  Board  of  Ministerial 
Education.  The  special  committee  on  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Centennial  reported,  acknowledging  the  invitation  from  Bishop 
Simpson  and  H.  K.  Carroll  to  participate,  reciprocating  the 
"courtesy  and  good-will,"  "we  beg  leave  respectfully  to  state, 
that  whilst  as  a  denomination  we  could  not  feel  free  to  appear  as 
participants  in  the  celebration,"  etc.,  in  furtherance,  "we  recom- 
mend that  a  commission,  consisting  of  two  ministers  and  two 
laymen,  be  appointed,  "  who  shall  bear  to  the  Centenary  Confer- 
ence of  1884  the  fraternal  greetings  of  this  body,  and  our  grateful 
recognition  of  what  God  has  wrought  in  this  land  through  organ- 
ized Methodism,  both  Episcopal  and  Non-Episcopal" :  L.  W.  Bates, 
John  Scott,  J.  W.  Hering.  Subsequently,  the  President  an- 
nounced as  the  Commission,  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  Dr.  John  Scott, 
Hon.  F.  H.  Pierpont,  and  Dr.  J.  W.  Hering. 

On  the  twelfth  day.  May  29,  three  sessions  were  held  to  ex- 
pedite the  closing  business,  the  most  important  being  the  report 
of  the  laborious  Committee  on  Statistics,  which  is  herewith 
appended;  that  on  Sabbath-schools  being  so  imperfect  as  to 
furnish  no  truthful  idea  of  what  the  Church  was  doing  as  an 
organization  committed  specially  to  childhood  church  member- 
ship and  Sabbath-school  instruction,  it  is  omitted.  The  statistics, 
it  will  be  seen,  show  an  aggregate  net  increase  of  the  membership 
of  about  eight  thousand  for  the  quadrennium,  or  about  per 
cent.  That  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  for  the  same 
period  is  Ty^  per  cent  (see  "Centenary  Year  Book"  of  that 
Church).  "What  are  you  doing  as  a  Church?"  Answer.  "As 
much  as  our  powerful  sister  Methodism,  with  all  its  incidental 
advantages  and  protection  against  loss  by  removals,  heretofore 
considered."  The  aggregate  net  increase  in  the  value  of  church 
property  was  nearly  half  a  million,  one  of  the  surest  evidences  of 
the  growth,  and  most  reliable  signs  of  the  permanence,  of  a 
denomination.  At  the  close  of  the  night  session  the  General 
Conference  adjourned. 


620 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Statistics  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  CnuRcn 


s  « 

<o 

i 

•S-g 

n 

Cm 

0 

Annual  Contbrence 

^  2 

;ationei 

8  and 
chers 

atlonoi 

2 
"p 

ation  < 

■ch 

erty 

•a 

-2 

s 

a 

O 
u 

3 

.£3 

3 

Pi 

o 

Alabama 

31 

3,139 

66 

65 

2 

Arkansas  . 

10 

1,275 

29 

5,256 

Colorado,  Texas . 

19 

510 

11 

1,500 

Central  Texas  . 

31 

24 

1,560 

200 

15 

4,000 

Deep  Pwiver 

112 

Q 
O 

663 

15 

9 

2,000 

Fort  Smith . 

31 

1,400 

2 

13 

'  1 

2,500 

Georgia 

29 

0 

2,104 

00 

47 

65, 1 00 

Georgia  (Colored) 

18 

1,000 

17 

18 

2,500 

Genesee 

19 

21 

713 

13 

10^ 
90 

"& 

31,750 

Indiana 

56 

62 

6,891 

259 

13 

105,110 

Iowa  .... 

46 

15 

2,847 

73 

44 

14 

58  100 

Kansas 

20 

1  R 
ID 

926 

16 

5 

7 

9,250 

Kentucky  . 

26 

1,291 

8 

2  400 

Louisiana  . 

9 

1,129 

22 

7,220 

McCaine 

12 

12 

587 

"J 

4 

Maryland  . 

109 

33 

14,548 

coo 

2291 

56 

TKO  f\OK 

iOo,OoO 

Michigan 

41 

29 

2,198 

104 

26 

87,350 

Mississippi  . 

19 

■  * 

968 

*  * 

29 

Minnesota  . 

20 

6 

304 

lb 

4 

"2 

4,030 

Missouri 

43 

1,905 

20^ 

2 

10,100 

Muskingum 

55 

63 

10,131 

696 

148 

15 

OQO  QOA 

New  York  . 

34 

15 

2,500 

1 10 

25 

11 

140.  (JOU 

New  Jersey 

21 

14 

2,169 

214 

28 

9 

90  750 

North  Carolina  . 

58 

59 

12,276 

103 

1661 

2 

90!  125 

North  Missouri  . 

24 

10 

1,280 

21 

20^ 

4 

23^700 

Nebraska  . 

10 

10 

602 

40 

12 

5 

2,600 

North  Illinois 

49 

37 

2,300 

54 

20 

95,000 

North  Arkansas 

23 

6 

800 

*io 

3 

1 

1,000 

North  Mississippi 

16 

13 

944 

3 

30 

4,950 

Ohio  .... 

45 

43 

6,065 

174 

lf)4 

26 

242,100 

Onondaga  . 

66 

30 

2,153 

141 

35^ 

24 

9U,40fi 

Oregon 

6 

4 

200 

3 

2 

17,000 

Pittsburgh  . 

49 

54 

8,115 

134 

76i 

17 

507,021 

Pennsylvania 

12 

11 

570 

144 

14i 

3 

20.000 

South  lUinois 

27 

42 

2,675 

2 

35 

3 

30,000 

South  Carolina  . 

16 

11 

1,209 

14 

29 

2 

6,0ft0 

Tennessee  . 

18 

4 

1,277 

4 

24 

10,550 

Texas  .... 

23 

4 

1,779 

6 

"'2 

5,450 

Virginia 

38 

19 

3,267 

142 

32i 

15,650 

West  Michigan  . 

26 

33 

1,412 

80 

21^ 

15 

40,.300 

West  Virginia  . 

&4 

105 

13,070 

47 

1254 

19 

116,150 

West  Tennessee 

20 

784 

23 

4,500 

Western  Arkansas 

23 

17 

1,159 

'ifi 

33 

3.90f» 

Total  . 

1,321 

905 

124,695 

3,572 

1,824 

311 

$3,010,502 

32 


<a 

emark 

MissioxARY  Districts 


Boston 

Baltimore  (Colored)  . 
California  . 
Colorado,  Tex.  (Col'd) 
Ked  Kiver  . 

Total  . 

Grand  total  . 

"9 
"10 

'4 

"8 
2 

"293 

"  480 
198 

21 
4 

7 

11 

3 

$13,900 

2.428 
6<»0 

19 

14 

971 

25 

21 

16.928 

1,340 

919 

12.5,666j3,597|l,S45 

311 

$3,()27,4;J0 

G  G.  Westfall,  Chairman. 


PRIOBITT  OF  AMERICAN  "  BISHOPS  " 


621 


In  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
May,  1884,  on  motion  of  Dr.  Neely,  —  opposed  by  Dr.  Whedon, 
but  seconded  by  Dr.  Curry,  —  it  was  resolved  that  the  bishopric 
is  an  office,  and  not  an  order,  etc.    Immediately  after  its  adjourn- 
ment this  action  set  the  family  of  Advocates  by  the  ears,  —  the 
usual  official  harmony  was  disturbed,  — the  prelatical  element  of 
the  ministry  vehemently  denounced  it,  while  the  presbyterial 
brethren  as  vehemently  upheld  it  as  the  view  of  the  "fathers." 
Perhaps  it  was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  had  announced  a  Centenary  celebration,  dating 
from  October  7,  1884,  quadrating  with  the  ordination  of  Bishop 
Seabury  of  Connecticut  by  the  Aberdeen,  Scotland,  bishops, 
October  7,  1784,  or  nearly  three  months  before  Asbury  was  "  set 
apart"  as  a  Bishop(?)  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
True,  their  formal  Convention  was  not  held  until  after  Asbury's 
Christmas  Conference,  but  these  sticklers  for  priority  held  that 
constructively,  at  least,  they  were  an  Episcopal  Church  from  the 
date  of  Seabury 's  ordination;  and  this  cannot  be  disputed.  Why 
all  this  ado?    Nothing,  gentle  reader,  but  the  disputable  claim  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  often  and  pridefully  repeated, 
that  Coke  and  Asbury  were  "  the  first  bishops  in  America."  And 
now  for  the  General  Conference  of  1884  —  the  rash  work  of  the 
young  bloods  —  to  declare  that  their  bishopric  was  a  mere  office 
and  not  an  order,  with  a  rubric  appended  to  the  so-called  "  ordi- 
nation service"  to  this  effect,  it  was  too  bad.    And  then,  in 
November  27,  1884,  Dr.  Abel  Stevens,  now  in  a  kind  of  voluntary 
banishment  in  Switzerland,  after  his  cavalier  treatment  and  dis- 
mission from  the  editorship  of  the  JVew  York  Advocate,  published 
an  article  in  that  paper,  under  the  date  given,  in  which  he  affirms 
of  lay-representation,  "On  the  ground  on  which  the  *Eeformers ' 
[1827-30]  were  arrested,  all  great  reformatory  movements  could 
be  impeached,  and  all  progress  arrested."    In  the  same  article, 
speaking  of  Emory's  "Defence  of  our  Fathers,"  he  says,  "It  was 
actually  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Bond,  a  layman."  (See 
the  Baltimore  official  paper,  December  6,  1884.)    The  writer  had 
intimated  this  latter  fact  earlier  in  this  volume,  but  until  now  he 
lacked  evidence. 

September  20,  1884,  the  writer,  as  editor  of  the  official  paper, 
began  the  publication,  in  short  chapters,  of  O'Kelly's  "Apology," 
for  its  more  general  circulation  and  preservation,  as  it  had  become 
very  rare.  In  obedience  to  the  order  of  the  late  General  Confer- 
ence to  consolidate  the  Sunday-school  issues  under  an  editor,  the 


622 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Board  of  Publication,  as  such,  met  at  Pittsburgh,  and  took  the 
question  into  consideration.  As  already  noted,  the  Sunday-school 
papers  of  Pittsburgh  claimed  a  circulation  of  9500;  those  of 
Baltimore,  covering  the  international  lesson  series,  nearly  59,000. 
A  whole  day  was  spent  in  a  fruitless  negotiation,  neither  Direc- 
tory being  willing  to  surrender  to  the  other  its  publications.  No 
further  mention  need  be  made,  but  the  fact  that,  as  a  last  resort, 
the  brethren  of  Pittsburgh  presented  the  commercial  proposition 
of  give  or  take,  offering  the  Baltimore  Directory,  for  the  privi- 
lege of  concentrating  the  publishing  at  their  end,  33  ^  per  cent 
discount  on  them  delivered  in  bulk  as  compensation  for  the  sur- 
render, and  distribution  in  Baltimore,  as  an  agency,  on  an  equal 
footing  with  their  own.  It  was  not  believed  by  the  Baltimore 
brethren  that  the  margin  of  profit  would  justify  them  in  such 
tender  of  discount,  therefore  they  accepted  the  offer.  It  was 
another  of  those  business  compacts  not  to  be  disturbed  in  its 
essential  features  except  by  common  consent.  It  has  worked 
well  to  both  publishing  houses,  and  the  faith  has  been  kept. 
The  election  of  an  Editor  and  General  Manager  resulted  in  the 
choice  of  Kev.  J.  F.  Cowan,  who  had  been  assisting  on  the  Balti- 
more lesson  series  for  a  length  of  time,  he  receiving  the  entire 
vote  of  Baltimore  and  one  from  Pittsburgh.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  new  arrangement  should  not  take  effect  until  January,  1885, 
to  give  time  for  the  readjustment. 

The  Centenary  of  the  Episcopal  Methodists,  pursuant  to  notice, 
took  place  in  Mt.  Vernon  church,  Baltimore,  December  7.  It  is 
a  splendid  structure,  and  has  a  capacity  of  fifteen  hundred  or 
more.  The  delegates  to  the  Centenary  elected  were  six  hundred, 
of  whom  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  attended.  Expectation  as 
to  its  size  was  not  realized,  but  it  made  an  august  assembly,  the 
picked  men  of  the  Episcopal  Methodisms  gracing  it  with  their 
presence,  piety,  and  eloquence.  No  Non-Episcopal  Methodism 
was  present,  except  the  Canada  Methodists,  always  heretofore 
rated  as  Episcopal,  a  few  from  the  Primitives,  and  the  Baltimore 
Independents.  The  programme  did  not  include  Organic  Union 
or  Union  of  any  kind;  but  there  were  frequent  incidental  refer- 
ences, always  received  with  applause.  Bishop  Foster's  sermon, 
introductory,  was  a  grand  effort,  bating  some  queer  allusions, 
historical,  such  as  the  averment  that  the  Christmas  Conference 
of  1784  contained  no  laymen,  —  a  reference  made  necessary  from 
the  fact  that  the  present  assembly  was  nearly  equally  divided 
between  ministers  and  laymen,  — because  it  was  "with  tlieir  own 


SOME  DELIVERANCES  AT  CENTENARY  CONFERENCE  G23 


consent."  It  was  not  the  place  or  time  to  dispute  it,  but  every- 
body knew  better,  except  Bishop  Foster,  who  ought  at  least  to 
have  known  it  was  not  true,  either  in  whole  or  in  part.  The 
Methodist  Protestant  Commissioners  were  most  courteously  re- 
ceived, and  the  night  of  December  11  set  apart  to  hear  them. 
Hon.  F.  H.  Pierpont  gave  notice  that  he  could  not  attend,  and  Dr. 
H.  F.  Zollickoffer  was  named  as  a  substitute ;  but  he  did  not  par- 
ticipate. Drs.  Bates,  Scott,  and  Hering  were  present,  and  the 
church  was  full  of  the  Conference  and  spectators,  of  whom  the 
writer  was  one.  Their  addresses  may  be  found  in  the  Methodist 
Protestant  of  December  20,  1884.  No  more  loyal  men  to  the 
Church  ever  appeared  before  an  Episcopal  Methodist  body.  The 
addresses  of  Drs.  Bates  and  Scott  were  largely  historical,  and  did 
credit  to  their  heads  and  hearts  as  representatives  of  the  Church. 
The  first,  however,  took  occasion  toward  the  close,  as  he  said, 
properly,  "on  his  own  responsibility,"  to  advert  to  the  question 
of  Organic  Union,  and  made  a  prediction  in  these  words,  "  I  ven- 
ture to  predict  that  a  Union  of  American  Methodists  is  a  fore- 
gone conclusion."  (Applause.)  He  further  said,  "We  claim 
the  credit  of  your  lay-delegation,  and  when  the  Union  comes  to 
pass,  and,  lo,  it  will  come,  we  shall  claim  the  credit  of  that  also." 
The  second  made  the  longest  address  of  the  three,  and  it  abounded 
in  excellent  things,  and  allusions  to  his  own  personal  association 
with  the  brethren  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church;  argued 
the  question  of  church  government  irenically,  and  expressed  his 
desire  for  Union  in  the  words,  "  I  would  be  willing,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, to  live  to  a  great  age,  if  I  could  only  see  all  the  Methodist 
Churches  in  this  country  sink  out  of  sight  the  minor  differences 
which  separate  them,  and,  as  my  brother  from  Canada  suggested 
this  afternoon,  unite  in  one  great  Methodist  Church."  A  decade 
of  years  after  this  deliverance  he  wrote  in  review,  "  From  present 
indications,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  I  would  have  to  live  to  a 
very  great  age  indeed,  to  be  permitted  to  see  a  Union  of  all  the 
Methodist  Churches  in  this  country."  ^  In  the  knowledge  of  the 
writer,  Dr.  Bates  has  not  since  been  heard  from  on  this  subject ;  ^ 

1  "  Fifty  Years'  Recollections  in  the  Ministry." 

2  The  writer  has  since  ascertained  that  Dr.  Bates  has  made  several  deliverances, 
indicating  that  he  has  abandoned  the  view  expressed  at  the  Centennial  Conference, 
the  latest  being,  in  substance,  that  any  denomination  of  Methodists  so  thoroughly 
partisan  as  the  M.  E.  Church  proved  itself  to  be  in  officially  withdrawing  all  coun- 
tenance to  the  Christian  Endeavor  Societies,  and  the  counter  organization  of  the 
Epworth  League,  makes  the  Union  of  any  other  Methodism  with  it  impracticable 
and  undesirable. 


624  BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


and  he  ventures  to  predict,  also  at  the  risk  of  a  like  false  proph- 
ecy, that  Organic  Union  of  the  American  Methodists  will  never 
be  realized.  If  it  be  among  possibilities,  it  is  so  remote  that  the 
present  generation  has  no  interest  in  it.  What  the  Methodists 
of  the  world  need  is  federation,  and  what  the  Protestantism  of 
the  world  needs  is  federation.  IMore  than  this  is  impracticable, 
undesirable,  and  a  Utopian  dream.  Even  this  cannot  be  attained 
until  there  is  the  growth  of  a  Christ-love  greater  than  the  Church- 
love  ;  and  federation  is  the  first  step  in  the  direction,  and  must  be 
taken  before  Organic  Union  is  even  in  sight.  Dr.  Hering  deliv- 
ered a  chaste,  pertinent,  and  admirable  address,  confining  himself 
to  the  fraternal  mission  on  which  the  brethren  were  sent. 

The  British  Conference  having  pronounced  against  the  second 
Pan-Methodist  Conference  for  1887,  this  Episcopal  Conference 
did  the  same,  and  the  whole  matter  seemed  a  default;  but,  as 
will  be  seen,  it  was  afterward  revived  and  such  a  Conference 
appointed  for  1891,  the  centenary  of  Wesley's  death;  and  was 
successfully  held  in  Washington,  D.  C,  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  fully  participating  in  it.  The  Episcopal  Conference  was 
a  great  success  in  prompting  the  laity  to  another  display  of  abun- 
dant liberality,  as  in  1839  and  1866  —  a  round  million  was  con- 
tributed by  the  brethren,  and  the  material  status  of  the  Church 
lifted  to  a  higher  plane  than  ever.  It  was  so,  also,  largely  in  the 
Church  South,  their  poverty  considered.  It  gave  a  wonderful 
stimulus  to  all  the  general  interests  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church:  colleges,  education  of  the  ministry,  church  extension, 
foreign  missions;  and  the  tide  of  enterprise  rose  at  home  to  the 
cheerful  announcement  that  they  were  building  a  church  every 
day. 

These  gifts  came  from  a  loyal  laity,  most  of  them  from  the 
common  walks  of  life;  but,  made  spiritually  alive  by  the  free- 
grace  gospel  preached  and  the  helpful  means  of  the  Church,  they 
prospered  in  business,  and  a  deep  Christ-love  impelled  these 
offerings  to  a  system  which  had  ever  ignored  them  as  competent 
to  participate  in  government  or  have  any  part  in  the  distribution 
of  what  they  so  liberally  gave.  It  has  been  seen  how  their  deep 
unrest  under  this  disability  had  found  expression  on  the  eve  of 
General  Conferences,  petitioning  meekly  for  the  privilege;  and, 
since  this  period,  rising  to  the  dignity  of  remonstrance,  with 
gradual  and  grudging  concessions,  as  the  volume  of  demand  in- 
creased, with  a  future  hopeful  for  this  long-submerged  estate  of 
a  Church  which  is  rapidly  girdling  the  world.    "Ah!  it  is  our 


LOYAL  LAITY  AND  THE  EPISCOPAL  ''SYSTEM''  625 


system,  our  system ! "  Yes,  the  system  has  much  to  do  with  it . 
as  a  coercive  and  cohesive  force;  so  it  has  to  do  with  the  same 
features  in  the  Roman  hierarchy.  And  the  writer  is  not  so  ill- 
informed  as  not  to  know  that  not  a  few  of  their  most  intelligent 
laity  are  in  full  accord  with  the  ministry  that  it  is  the  system, 
and  patiently  rest  under  it,  yea,  defend  it.  A  typical  person- 
ality of  this  class  was  the  late  Theodore  Runyon,  United  States 
Ambassador  to  the  court  of  Germany,  deceased  January,  1896. 
An  ardent  Methodist  from  his  youth,  cultured  in  legal  and  clas- 
sical lore;  in  politics,  a  democrat  of  democrats,  believing  in  uni- 
versal suffrage  and  equal  rights  for  every  citizen ;  yet  so  enamoured 
of  an  ecclesiastical  system  violating  every  political  sentiment  he 
held,  that  on  one  occasion,  in  a  public  debate  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  he 
defended  the  system  against  a  brother  layman,  Charles  C.  North. 
These  are  anomalies,  and  few  as  the  "scattered  berries  on  the 
uppermost  branch."  As  offsetting  him,  instance  the  Hon.  Will 
Cumback  of  Indiana,  his  equal  in  all  the  features  named,  whose 
indignant  remonstrance  within  a  year  was  expressed  through 
one  of  the  Western  Advocates  against  the  dallying,  and,  what 
seemed  to  him,  the  evasive,  policy  of  the  governing  class  in 
granting  the  lay-rights  he  holds  so  sacred  and  indefeasible.  In- 
terrogate this  laic,  and  he  will  be  found  to  represent  four  out  of 
every  five  of  them. 

Our  notations  of  the  year  1884  will  close  with  necrological  ob- 
servations upon  Rev.  P.  L.  Laishley,  M.D.,  born  in  England, 
January  1,  1798.  His  forbears  were  early  Methodists,  and  he 
one  of  five  sons,  all  of  whom  became  ministers.  He  came  to 
America  in  1818,  and  in  1819  was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting 
in  Loudoun  County,  Va.  He  soon  became  acquainted  with 
O'Kelly's  "Christian  Church,"  united  with  it,  was  licensed  and 
ordained  in  1820 ;  so  that  he  was  a  pronounced  Reformer  before 
the  cause  was  born.  He  was  graduated  in  medicine  in  1832,  and 
practised  for  several  years;  but  the  love  of  preaching  overcame 
the  secular  employ,  and,  removing  to  the  West,  he  united  with 
the  Pittsburgh  Conference  in  1833,  the  year  it  was  organized. 
He  labored  in  the  West  Virginia  Conference  until  1868,  when  he 
again  united  with  the  Pittsburgh  Conference.  He  was  elected 
President  of  his  Annual  Conference  thirteen  times,  and  four  times 
a  representative  in  the  General  Conferences,  as  well  as  of  the  Gen- 
eral Convention  of  1877.  As  a  preacher  he  was  clear,  forcible, 
and  pathetic,  and  well  furnished  as  a  debater.  He  was  a  close 
observer,  with  a  great  fund  of  general  information,  interlarded 

VOL.  II — 2  8 


626 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


with  anecdotal  illustrations.  In  all  tlie  relations  of  life  he  was 
respected  and  loved  by  a  large  circle  of  intimate  friends.  He 
spent  his  closing  days  in  cheerful  retirement,  and  met  his  end 
peacefully,  May  31,  1884,  in  the  eighty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 
Rev.  William  Collins,  of  the  Tennessee  Conference,  deceased  July 
12,  1884,  in  his  eighty-second  year.  He  was  licensed  to  preach 
in  1820,  and  had  a  life-long  connection  with  the  Church.  Such 
is  a  brief  record  of  a  worthy  man.  Kev.  Edward  Dromgoole,  Jr., 
of  the  Virginia  Conference,  deceased,  in  1840,  in  his  fifty-second 
year.  His  obituary  did  not  appear  in  the  official  paper  until 
October  25,  1884.  He  was  a  son  of  the  Rev.  Edward  Dromgoole, 
one  of  the  early  Methodist  preachers,  and  from  whom  he  imbibed 
his  Reform  principles,  though  the  father  in  his  old  age  made  no 
change  in  his  church  relations.  But  little  is  now  known  of  the 
son,  except  that  he  was  true  to  his  convictions  and  died  in 
peace. 

The  Sunday-school  literature,  in  its  new  form  and  with  its  new 
editor,  appeared  punctually  with  the  first  week  of  the  year  1885. 
The  Baltimore  Bible-School  was  discontinued,  as  well  as  the 
Child^'i  Recorder,  at  Pittsburgh,  making  the  new  issues  stand, 
the  Bible-School  Quarterly,  the  Monthly  and  Weekly  Lessons, 
the  Morning  Guide,  and  Our  Children.  As  announced  at  the 
time,  they  were  "  as  good  as  the  best,  and  as  cheap  as  the  cheap- 
est"; and  the  editor  soon  gave  evidence  that  he  commanded  the 
situation ;  and  has  ever  since  kept  them  abreast  with  the  needs, 
while  many  improvements  have  marked  their  career  through 
these  eleven  years.  The  official  papers  were  kept  first-class  in 
character,  and  gradually  won  their  way  more  fully  among  the 
people,  despite  the  fact  that  competing  literature,  both  secular 
and  religious,  was  never  so  abundant.  The  West  Virginia  Metho- 
dist Protestant  was  issued  at  St.  Mary's,  W.  Va.,  by  Rev.  J.  J. 
Poynter  about  this  time.  It  was  about  half  the  size  of  the  official 
papers,  and  made  a  very  creditable  appearance.  It  soon  went  the 
way  of  all  such  ventures.  The  editors  and  general  agents,  under 
the  Annual  Council,  kept  up  their  Conference  visitations.  The 
mission  work  in  Japan,  under  Rev.  F.  C.  Klein  and  Miss  Brittain, 
took  shape  and  was  gaining  ground.  The  Annual  Conferences 
exhibited,  as  they  met,  improved  statistics  and  church  building; 
and  the  denomination  was  settling  upon  its  foundations  and 
rising  in  superstructure,  challenging  the  notice  and  winning  the 
respect  of  its  compeers.  It  had  demonstrated  its  right  to  live  in 
an  enlarging  sphere.    It  has  been  well  observed  that  "the  real 


''PERMEATING  POWER    AS  A  CRITERION  OF  SUCCESS  627 


force  of  any  movement  or  institution  is  to  be  measured  by  its 
permeating  power."  Judged  by  this  criterion,  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  was  a  great  success.  The  principles  and 
methods  for  which  its  originators  were  expelled  from  tlie  mother 
Church,  and  which  were  now  before  the  Christian  world  a  work- 
ing hypothesis,  permeated  the  ministry  and  membership  of  the 
parent  body ;  and  the  "  innovations "  of  1827-30  were  wrought 
into  the  polity  of  the  Episcopal  Methodist  churches.  Eeformers 
might  be  counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands  who  remained  under 
tolerant  treatment  in  their  old  Church  home,  and  so  did  not  add 
to  the  statistics  of  Reform  Methodists,  a  test  unhappily  quite 
misleading  as  to  the  prevalence  of  kindred  ideas  in  other 
communities. 

Rev.  Allen  Y.  Davis  deceased  April  14, 1885.  He  was  a  pioneer 
in  the  Church  work  in  the  Southwest,  and  an  original  member  of 
the  Mississippi  Conference.  His  name  must  not  perish  from  the 
records  of  devoted  adherents  of  the  cause.  William  S.  Greenwood 
deceased  May  12,  1885,  aged  seventy-seven  years.  He  was  an 
original  Reformer  and  a  charter  member  of  the  church  in  Ches- 
tertown,  Md.,  and  abounded  in  liberality  and  fidelity.  It  is  not 
the  plan  of  this  work  to  perpetuate  the  memory  in  this  form  of 
other  than  those  who  were  active  participants  in  the  movement 
of  1827-30 ;  but  a  few  exceptions  the  writer  deems  proper.  Dr. 
Henry  Fletcher  Zollickoffer  was  born  in  Maryland,  June  16, 1824, 
and  was  a  son  of  Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer,  an  ardent  Reformer  of 
the  early  days.  The  son  was,  for  a  few  years,  an  itinerant  in 
Maryland,  but  retired  and  studied  medicine,  and,  after  some 
years'  practice,  again  retired  from  the  exposures  of  these  employ- 
ments and  settled  in  commercial  life  in  Baltimore  city ;  accumu- 
lated a  competence;  gave  it  to  the  Church  in  liberal  sums  of 
$1000  at  a  time,  while  smaller  gifts  were  of  frequent  occurrence; 
he  saw  this  competence,  by  the  failure  of  business  partners,  van- 
ish away;  renewed  the  struggle,  partly  recovered,  and  returned 
to  his  liberal  methods  with  the  Church,  and  was  cut  off  by  typhoid 
fever,  September  30,  1885.  He  held  all  the  positions  of  trust  the 
Church  could  bestow  upon  him ;  several  times  representative  in 
the  General  Conferences,  and  a  member  of  the  General  Union 
Convention,  and  did  much,  in  the  "Committee  of  Conference," 
to  adjust  differences  of  opinion.  He  was  from  the  first  President 
of  the  Board  of  Publication.  Cultured,  spiritual,  devoted  in  his 
friendships,  his  closing  days  were  a  triumph  of  grace  over  disease 
and  the  fear  of  death.    The  official  papers  of  the  period  are  filled 


628 


UISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


with  tributes.  Kev.  John  H.  Honour  of  South  Carolina,  and  joint 
author  with  Rev.  W.  B.  Evans  of  the  "Questions  and  Answers," 
heretofore  noticed,  an  early  Reformer,  and  true  to  his  convic- 
tions, died  November,  1885.  Daniel  Stone  of  North  Carolina 
deceased  December  5,  1885,  aged  ninety  years.  He  was  identi- 
fied with  Reform  from  1828 ;  was  steadfast  and  true. 

The  new  volume  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  introduced  as  a 
motto:  "Childhood  for  the  Church  and  the  World  for  Christ." 
It  seems  to  have  struck  a  key-note,  for  at  once,  and  for  months 
after,  the  writers  for  the  papers  enlarged  upon  it,  and  needed 
attention  was  called  to  this  feature  of  the  church  work,  somewhat 
fallen  into  neglect  as  the  "fathers"  formulated  the  principle. 
The  Methodist  Recorder  appeared  in  a  dress  of  new  type,  and  under 
Dr.  Scott's  unremitting  labors  held  its  own  and  better.  The 
"  Year  Book  "  of  the  Church,  now  continued  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Cowan, 
was  filled  with  useful  information,  and  added  a  feature  of  like- 
nesses of  prominent  brethren.  The  Western  Recorder  changed  its 
title  to  the  Evangelist,  as  edited  and  published  by  Rev.  I.  H.  C. 
McKinney,  at  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  in  the  interest  of  that  Confer- 
ence. Rev.  F.  T.  Tagg,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions,  injected  into  it  ncAv  plans,  extensive  travel 
among  the  Conferences,  and  brought  up  the  receipts  to  a  most 
encouragiug  figure  during  this  quadrennium.  Rev.  J.  B.  Walker, 
of  the  Ministerial  Board,  was  no  less  diligent,  so  that  the  gen- 
eral enterprises  were  more  hopeful  than  ever.  For  several  years 
the  polished  and  prolific  pen  of  Rev.  A.  H.  Widney  of  Illinois 
graced  the  columns  of  the  official  papers,  whose  editors,  now  free 
from  the  double  burden  of  the  Sunday-school  literature,  gave 
undivided  labor  to  the  weekly  papers.  A  series  of  letters  ap- 
peared in  the  Baltimore  official,  November  and  December,  1880 
from  Asbury  and  Coke  to  Alexander  McCaine,  as  furnished  by 
his  daughter,  Mrs.  S.  A.  Britt.  They  bore  date  1799,  1802,  1806, 
and  one,  from  Coke,  1807,  all  of  them  breathing  the  love  and 
confidence  that  existed  during  life  between  these  men  of  renown. 

The  necrology  was  much  enlarged  this  year.  Rev.  R.  B.  Thom- 
son, D.D.,  was  born  at  Norfolk,  Va.,  November  15,  1808.  He 
received  the  benefit  of  the  best  education,  was  converted,  and 
united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Richmond,  Va. 
In  1827  he  removed  to  Princess  Anne  County,  where  he  became 
acquainted  with  the  Reform  literature  of  the  day,  and,  on  the 
30th  of  November,  1828,  he  united  with  the  first  Associated 
Methodist  Church,  formed  under  this  title  at  Princess  Anne  Court 


NECROLOGY  OF  WORTHY  REFORMERS 


629 


House.  On  the  2d  of  December  lie  was  elected  class-lctader. 
Licensed  to  preach,  in  1829,  he  was  a  delegate  to  the  first  Virginia 
Conference,  and,  in  1830,  was  received  as  a  member.  From  this 
onward  he  received  every  honor  his  brethren  could  bestow  upon 
him;  President  of  the  Annual  Conference  a  number  of  times, 
and  also  a  member  of  the  General  Conference,  in  which  his  pro- 
nounced abilities  always  commanded  respect.  He  was  eminent 
as  a  preacher  and  a  Conference  debater,  a  man  of  mark  in  all 
relations.  His  closing  days  were  spent  in  the  quiet  of  his  coun- 
try home,  and  he  departed  this  life  in  peace,  January  18,  1886, 
in  his  seventy-eighth  year.  His  obsequies  were  held  in  the 
Lynchburg,  Va.,  church,  and  drew  tributes  of  admiration  from 
ministers  of  the  various  denominations. 

Kev.  John  Herbert,  an  original  member  of  the  Ohio  Conference, 
was  born  in  1800,  and  departed  December  25,  1885.  Rev.  Thomas 
Shipp,  pioneer  in  the  Indiana  Conference,  deceased  January  8, 
1886,  aged  eighty  years.  Rev.  W.  H.  Marshall  was  born  in  Eng- 
land, August  18,  1806,  came  to  this  country  in  1818,  was  con- 
verted in  1822,  and  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
In  1829  he  cast  his  lot  with  the  Reformers  in  the  West.  He 
afterward  labored  successfully  in  the  Ohio,  the  Pittsburgh,  and 
the  Muskingum  Conferences,  and  of  the  latter  was  once  elected 
President.  His  useful  life  ended  February  8,  1886.  Joseph 
Graham  deceased  March  28,  1886.  He  was  an  original  member 
of  the  church  at  Easton,  Md.,  and  for  fifty-eight  years  was  honored 
for  all  manly  and  Christian  virtues.  Linked  with  this  name  is 
that  of  Jacob  Boston  of  Baltimore,  an  original  Reformer,  and 
steadfast  friend  of  the  Church  and  of  every  good  work,  who 
departed  this  life,  loved  and  honored,  in  his  eighty -fifth  year. 
Rev.  B.  J.  Thackera,  born  in  New  Jersey,  June  3,  1790;  united 
with  the  Reformers  of  his  day;  endured  persecution  for  his  con- 
victions; and  departed  this  life  February  26,  1864,  his  son.  Rev. 
Daniel  Thackera  of  the  New  Jersey  Conference,  furnishing  a  sketch 
for  the  official  papers,  May  1,  1886.  J.  J.  Gillespie  of  Pittsburgh, 
Pa.,  deceased  July  17,  1886,  in  his  seventy-third  year.  He 
became  identified  with  the  Church  in  1835,  and  held  prominent 
positions,  in  Annual  and  General  Conferences,  and  its  institutions, 
the  Book  Concern  and  Adrian  College ;  liberal,  devoted,  success- 
ful in  business,  of  unflinching  convictions,  of  marked  personality 
and  commanding  physique,  for  more  than  fifty  years  he  was  a 
leader  in  Church  work.  Rev.  T.  K.  Witsel,  of  the  New  York  and 
the  New  J ersey  Conferences,  and  often  President,  a  member  of 


630 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


the  General  Conferences,  a  Reformer  from  1829,  departed  this 
life  July  8,  1886,  in  his  ninetieth  year. 

Eev.  A.  H.  Bassett  was  born  in  Massachusetts,  July  1,  1809;  in 
1810  his  parents  removed  to  Cincinnati,  where,  at  twelve  years 
of  age,  he  was  converted  and  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  By  close  application  he  made  up  for  the  lack  of  educa- 
tional advantages,  and  when  the  Beform  movement  took  shape  in 
that  city,  though  but  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  faced  the  respon- 
sibility, great  in  that  day,  and  joined  his  fortunes  with  the  Ex- 
pelled Beformers.  In  1830  he  united  with  the  Ohio  Conference, 
and  served  it  as  Secretary  and  President.  In  1845  he  retired, 
and  took  charge  of  the  Western  Recorder,  and  conducted  it  for  ten 
years,  having  become  a  painstaking  and  able  writer.  When  the 
paper  became  the  official  organ  of  the  West  he  again  took  charge, 
and  remained  connected  with  it,  as  Agent  or  Editor,  or  both, 
with  a  few  intervals,  until  1872,  when  he  retired.  He  was  punc- 
tilious, accurate,  and  circumstantial  in  all  his  work,  and  has  done 
much  to  preserve  to  the  Church  the  olden  records.  In  1877  he 
issued  a  "  Concise  History  "  of  the  Church.  He  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Western  Book  Concern,  and  was  elected  to  every 
General  Conference,  save  one,  for  forty  years;  also  of  the  Con- 
ventions of  the  "  Methodist "  Church,  and  the  Union  Convention 
of  1877.  As  a  preacher  he  was  chaste  and  instructive ;  but  his 
fame  stands  associated  with  the  press  of  the  West,  as  father  and 
patron,  with  Cornelius  Springer.  He  had  a  lingering  illness  from 
heart  affection,  and  departed  peacefully  at  Springfield,  August 
30,  1886,  aged  seventy-eight.  Eev.  Mather  Hoover,  local  min- 
ister of  Tennessee,  original  Beformer,  deceased  March  9,  1886, 
aged  seventy-three.  James  West  Thompson  of  Centreville,  Md., 
deceased  August  25,  1886,  for  half  a  century  identified  with  the 
Church,  a  noble  man,  an  educator,  and  true  Christian.  Bev.  A. 
G.  Grove,  M.D.,  born  in  Maryland,  March  31,  1814,  was  identi- 
fied with  Beform  from  1827,  the  year  of  his  spiritual  birth.  A 
member  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  in  1857  he  removed  to  Ala- 
bama and  there  took  up  the  distracted  cause  and  bore  the  brunt 
of  its  recuperation  for  a  series  of  years.  He  departed  suddenly 
October  31,  1886. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


Statistics  for  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  M.  E.  and  the  M.  P.  Churches  show  that 
the  "system"  of  the  former  cannot  be  claimed  as  advantageous  — Improve- 
ment in  the  official  papers,  etc.  —  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church ;  lay- 
delegation  and  women  delegates  before  them ;  the  latter  referred  for  decision 
to  the  Methodist  "  people  "  ;  shades  of  the  Reform  fathers !  — Fifteenth  General 
Conference  at  Adrian,  Mich.,  May,  1888;  roster  of  members;  reports  of  Book 
Concerns  and  general  Agents ;  committee  of  nine  to  revise  the  Articles  of  Reli- 
gion ;  colleges ;  statistics ;  a  gain  of  twelve  per  cent  in  the  quadrennium  in 
members  — Comparison  of  statistics  of  the  M.  E,  and  M.  P.  Churches;  queries 
—  Obituaries:  AV.  H.  Wills  and  others ;  Calvin  Tompkins  and  J.  J.  Amos  of  the 
laity,  and  Robison,  Webster,  and  Lipscomb  of  the  clergy  —  British  delegates  at 
the  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South ;  reflections  thereon  ;  mani- 
fest destiny  of  the  Reformed  Church  — The  Heathsville,  Va.,  church  case  — 
The  Christian  Endeavor  movement  —  Obituary:  Rev.  J.  B.  Walker  and  others. 

The  Western  Metliodist  Protestant,  Eev.  J.  H.  Albritton,  editor 
and  publisher,  Cameron,  Tex.,  a  quarto  four-page  paper,  was 
issued  in  1883,  with  the  brief  life  of  such  ill-considered  local 
enterprises.  The  Indiana  Evangelist  again  changed  name  to 
the  National  Methodist,  No.  1  of  Vol.  8,  by  I.  H.  C.  McKinney. 
Intelligence,  enterprise,  and  pluck  marked  his  conduct  of  it 
through  these  years,  with  or  without  the  support  of  the  local 
Conference.  September  17,  1887,  a  carefully  prepared  statement 
was  published  in  the  Baltimore  paper,  giving  the  relative  increase 
in  members  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  and  Methodist  Protestant 
Churches  for  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  existence  of  each.  The 
result  is,  for  the  former  2049  per  cent,  and  for  the  latter  2220 
per  cent.  There  are  some  elements  of  uncertainty  in  the  calcula- 
tion, but  approximately  correct  enough  to  prove  that  the  success 
of  Methodism  could  not  be  due  to  the  system  of  Asbury  and  Coke ; 
other  things  being  equal,  the  system  of  Snethen,  Shinn,  and  Jen- 
nings succeeded  just  as  well.  The  Methodist  Recorder  for  May, 
1887,  reported  a  circulation  of  sixty-two  hundred,  an  increase  of 
twenty-two  per  cent  for  the  year  past.  The  preachers  and  people 
took  hold  of  it  under  the  careful  editorship  of  Dr.  Scott,  with 
this  result;  but  one  thought  was  allowed  to  dominate;  it  was  the 
Church  paper  of  the  North  and  West,  and  an  official  organ  of  the 

631 


632 


UI STORY  OF  METHODIST  liEFOUM 


general  Church,  and  they  meant  it  should  be  supported.  Business 
had  improved,  and  the  country  was  on  a  tide  of  apparent  if  not 
real  prosperity,  and  this  was  helpful.  The  same  zeal  would  keep 
all  the  Church  interests  to  the  front  at  all  seasons.  The  Balti- 
more Book  Concern  was  invited  into  new  and  handsome  quarters 
by  the  ageut  and  publisher,  at  No.  8  East  Baltimore  Street,  the 
present  eligible  location.  With  the  first  number  of  its  next 
volume,  for  January,  1888,  the  form  of  the  official  paper  was 
changed  to  sixteen  pages,  large  quarto,  with  new  headpiece  and 
new  type,  and  a  readjusted  make-up,  at  an  additional  cost  of 
$1500  a  year.  It  was  warmly  received  by  its  patrons,  and  shared 
in  the  increased  circulation,  the  edition  being  fifty-two  hundred, 
a  gain  of  a  thousand  in  the  year.  The  Sabbath-school  literature 
adapted  itself  to  every  want,  and  was  soon  received  into  nearly 
all  the  schools.  It  was  more  evident  than  ever  that  the  Metliodist 
Protestant  Church  was  to  be  denominationally  perpetuated  in- 
definitely. It  was  the  General  Conference  year,  appointed  for 
the  first  time  at  Adrian,  Mich.,  a  territorial  extreme  inciting 
some  discussion  and  fear  of  a  sparse  attendance, —  a  fear  which 
its  assembly  effectually  dissipated. 

James  B.  Mathews  of  Maryland,  born  November  2,  1791,  de- 
ceased June  26, 1887.  He  was  an  original  Reformer,  and  founder  of 
Union  chapel,  Howard  County,  wliose  long  life  was  spent  in  active 
business  and  CJuirch  work.  He  married  a  sister  of  Rev.  Alfred 
Griffith  of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  and  from  him  derived  his 
Reform  principles.  Rev.  J.  P.  Johnston,  M.D.,  of  the  Xorth 
Illinois  Conference,  local  elder  and  practising  physician,  deceased 
October  8,  1887.  An  original  Reformer,  a  frequent  contributor 
to  the  official  papers,  true  and  steadfast  to  the  end.  Rev.  Israel 
Thrapp  was  born  May  15,  1807,  in  Ohio.  He  was  converted  at 
the  first  camp-meeting  held  west  of  the  mountains  by  the  "  Re- 
formers," and  united  with  them.  In  1829  and  1830  he  took 
active  part  in  revivals,  and  worked  with  his  own  hands  in  erect- 
ing the  first  Reform  church  west  of  the  Ohio  River.  In  1831  he 
was  licensed  to  preach  by  Zanesville  circuit,  and  joined  the  Ohio 
Conference,  September,  1831.  In  1833  the  Ohio  Conference  was 
divided,  and  he  identified  himself  with  the  Pittsburgh  section, 
and  labored  until  the  fall  of  1842,  when  the  Muskingum  Con- 
ference was  set  off,  and  he  elected  to  remain  in  Muskingum, 
becoming  by  this  act  its  first  President.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
General  Conference  of  1846  at  Cincinnati,  and  also  of  several 
Conventions  of  the  Methodist  Church.    Something  of  his  history 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1888 


633 


in  this  connection  has  already  been  given  in  these  pages.  For  a 
number  of  years  lie  held  a  superannuated  relation  to  the  Con- 
ference, but  abated  none  of  his  interest  and  lost  none  of  his 
influence,  though  partially  disabled  from  paralysis.  He  departed 
this  life  peacefully  at  his  home,  August  30,  1887. 

Mrs.  A.  C.  Baker  of  Buckeystown,  Md.,  deceased,  made  three 
bequests:  one  of  $1000  to  Nagoya  mission,  Japan;  one  of  $500 
to  the  superannuated  fund  of  the  Maryland  Conference;  and  one 
of  $300  to  the  Bible  Society.  A  godly  woman's  remembrance. 
It  was  officially  announced  that  arrangements  for  a  second  Ecu- 
menical Conference  of  Methodists  had  been  made  for  1891,  at 
Washington,  D.  C,  U.  S.  A.,  on  the  same  basis  of  attendance  as 
at  London  in  1881 :  four  hundred  delegates,  to  be  divided  between 
the  English  and  the  American  bodies.  Again  the  good  nature  of 
the  Americans  prevailed  over  the  jealous  fears  of  their  trans- 
Atlantic  brethren  that  they  would  be  outnumbered,  though  on  a 
ratio  of  membership  this  was  only  fair.  The  General  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  met  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House  in  New  York,  there  being  no  church  edifice  large  enough 
for  the  purpose.  May  1,  1888.  The  inevitable  and  irrepressible 
lay-delegation  question  was  before  them  in  various  forms,  the 
people  entreating  and  the  brethren  professing  willingness,  but 
somehow  always  leaving  it  a  question  for  farther  delays.  Six 
women  delegates  appeared  with  their  credentials  from  Annual 
Conferences,  and  the  issue  had  to  be  met.  After  debates  and 
manoeuvring,  it  was  settled  for  the  time  by  referring  it  to  the 
people  of  both  sexes  on  popular  vote  for  decision,  report  to  be 
made  to  the  next  General  Conference.  Shades  of  the  Fathers! 
A  reference  to  the  Methodist  "  people  "  in  their  primary  assem- 
blies !  It  was  the  first  adoption  of  a  genuine  Methodist  Protes- 
tant idea  ever  known  in  that  Church.  It  shall  be  seen  what 
became  of  it. 

The  Fifteenth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  convened  in  Plymouth  church,  Adrian,  Mich.,  May  18, 
1888,  at  10  A.M.  Called  to  order  by  the  President,  W.  S.  Ham- 
mond; Secretary,  S.  K.  Spahr.  The  following  list  contains  the 
names  of  those  elected  to  this  General  Conference :  — 


Alabama 


Ministers 
H.  H.  McNeill 
J.  T.  Howell  1 


Laymen 
D.  O.  Stanfill 
C.  E.  Crenshaw 


1  Absent. 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Arkansas 


Ministers 
M.  C.  Jackson 


Laymen 
J.  F.  Jordan 


Baltimore  (Colored) 
Eev.  W.  H.  Lee,  Messenger  i 


J.  E.  Bounds 

Thomas  Aaron  i 
Solomon  Longi 
James  Whitaker 
J.  G.  Coldwell 

F.  N.  Foster 

H.  Stackhouse 

I.  H.  C.  McKinney 

G.  W.  Boxell  1 
F.  M.  Hussey 

S.  J.  Geddes 

W.  M.  Van  Vleet 

J.  H.  Luse 

H.  S.  Swetnam 

J.  M.  P.  Hickerson 

L.  W.  Bates 
F.  T.  Tagg 
W.  S.  Hammond 
W.  M.  Strayer 

1  Absent. 


Central  Texas 

L.  Hinds  1 

N.  G.  Ferguson  2 

Colorado  (Texas) 

Judge  Morris  ^ 


Deep  River 
Fort  Smith 
Georgia 
Genesee 
Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 
Kentucky 
Louisiana 
Maryland 


E.  L.  McHargue* 

W.  C.  H.  Walker  1 

J.  M.  Adamson 

Geo.  W.  Doty 

W.  W.  McCaslin 
J.  M.  Eades 
W.  A.  Quick  1 
N.  Hill 

J.  F.  Burdine 
J.  W.  Murphy  1 

D.  Vangundyi 

Dawson  Dillon  ^ 

J.  W.  Calcotei 


W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
C.  W.  Button 
J.  R.  Caton 
J.  W.  Hering 

2  Alternate. 


ROSTER  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 


Ministers 
J.  D.  Kinzer 
E.  J.  Drinkhouse 
T.  H.  Lewis 
J.  T.  Murray 
D.  L.  Greenfield 


G.  B.  McElroy 
W.  H.  McChesney 
W.  A.  Fogle 
J.  L.  Scarborough 
J.  R.  Hatch 


Maryland  (continued) 

Laymen 
J.  D.  Baker 
Samuel  Vannort 
W.  J.  Aydelotte 
J.  B.  Thomas 
Horace  Burrough 


J.  R.  Botts 


D.  Jones 
A.  W.  Robertson 
Mark  B.  Taylor 
J.  C.  Berrien 


C.  McSmith 
B.  F.  Duggan 

G.  C.  Smith 
G.  W.  Johnson  i 


Michigan 
Minnesota 

Missouri 

Mississippi 

Onondaga 

Oregon 
(No  report) 

Pennsylvania 
Pittsburgh 


W.  J.  Spear  1 
Wm.  Staufferi 
J.  W.  Miller  1 
J.  W.  Mclnnis* 
F.  C.  Griffin 


G.  P.  Miller 


W.  K.  Gillespie 
Jos.  Bently 
James  P.  Sayre 
Henry  J.  Heinz 


Red  River 
(No  report) 

South  Carolina 


Daniel  Yarborough^ 


Tennessee 


G.  B.  Moon 


South  Illinois 


Texas 


1  Absent. 


F.  M.  Link 


Joseph  Morris  ^ 


636 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


3Iinisters 

Geo.  R.  Barri 
F.  T.  Matthews  1 


Virginia 


Laymen 
H.  F.  Woodhouse  i 
J.  F.  Richmond  1 


"West  Arkansas 
Thos.  J.  Loudermilk  Dr.  C.  M.  Norwood  ^ 

West  Tennessee 
A.  W.  Floyd  2  R.  W.  TaUey  i 

S.  0.  Hooper  1 

West  Michigan 
AVrn.  D.  Tompkinson  S.  J.  Badcock^ 

J.  W.  Burlincrton  i 


M.  L.  Jennings 
S.  A.  Fisher 
Wm.  Hastings 

G.  W.  Hissey 
J.  S.  Tlirap 
W.  L.  Wells 

C.  S.  Bradley 

L.  D.  Stultz 

L.  E.  Davis 

H.  B.  Cox 


T.  J.  Ogburn 
J.  R.  Ball 
J.  L.  Michauxi 
R.  H.  AVills 
D.  A.  Highfilli 
S.  W.  Coe 
F.  M.  Totten 


Thomas  Kelley 
G.  Williams 


Muskingum 


Nebraska 


New  Jersey 


New  York 


Warner  Mills 
C.  J.  Tingling 
J.  M.  Mc  Henry 
Boyd  McCormick 
H.  H.  Woodard 
L.  Hawk 

J.  W.  Strickleri 

Z.  Patterson 

Arther  D.  Matthews 


North  Arkansas 

G.  B.  Holifield  i 

North  Carolina 

J.  F.  Harris 
W.  C.  AVhitaker 
W.  J.  Ellis  1 
J.  C.  Roberts 
M.  H.  Holt 
J.  M.  Hadley 
O.  R.  Cox  1 


North  Illinois 


W.  S.  Wilson 


North  Missouri 
1  Absent. 


N.  Davis 
2  Alternates. 


BUSINESS  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 


637 


NouTii  Mississippi 


Ministers 
Wm.  Shepherd  1 


Laymen 
A.  T.  Harris! 


Ohio 


T.  B.  Graham  2 

C.  S.  Evans  1 

D.  S.  Stephens 
S.  K.  Spahr 


A.  Alexander 
W.  L.  Bailey 
A.  T.  Corbit 


West  Virginia 


B.  Stout 
A.  L.  McKeever 
M.  L.  Barnett 
J.  F.  Cowan 
J.  J.  Mason 
D.  G.  Ilelmick 

D.  H,  Davis  1 
O.  Lowther2 

E.  J.  Wilson  2 


J.  W.  Hull 


R.  II.  Freer! 
John  Linn 


J.  N.  Pierpont 
I.  C.  Post 


J.  H.  Henry  1 
U.  S.  Fleming 
Wm,  Mearns2 
L.  D.  Swisher  2 


Alabama,  Colorado,  Georgia,  Spring  Eiver  (colored),  no  report. 

One  Imndred  and  sixty-one  were  elected,  and  of  these  forty-four 
were  absent,  mostly  from  the  South  and  Southwest.  It  was  not 
so  large  as  was  feared,  from  the  pecuniary  inability  of  brethren 
to  be  present,  there  being  no  Book  Concern  fund  out  of  which  to 
pay  expenses,  as  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  was 
largely  a  picked  body  of  men,  and  made  a  good  impression  as  a 
deliberative  assembly.  At  the  afternoon  session  David  Jones 
was  elected  President,  and  U.  S.  Fleming,  Secretary;  L.  D.  Stultz, 
Assistant.  The  whole  of  the  second  day  was  occupied  in  the 
presentation  of  papers  and  incidental  business.  On  the  third  day 
a  large  list  of  Standing  Committees  was  announced  by  the  Presi- 
dent, and  the  time  occupied  with  reports  from  the  Colleges  and 
Book  Concerns  and  General  Agents.  The  same  order  for  the 
fourth  and  fifth  days.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  sixth  day  the 
election  of  editors  and  officers  took  place :  Editor  of  the  Methodist 
Recorder,  D.  S.  Stephens;  Publisher  and  Book  Agent  at  Pitts- 
burgh, W.  McCrackin,  Jr. ;  Directory,  W.  P.  Herbert,  W.  K. 
Gillespie,  Nathan  Jones,  S.  A.  Fisher,  and  John  Gregory;  Editor 
of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse;  Publisher  and 
Book  Agent  at  Baltimore,  W.  J.  C.  Dulany ;  Directory,  Horace 
Burrougb,  J.  G.  Clarke,  J.  T.  Murray,  J.  W.  Hering,  and  J.  D- 


1  Absent. 


2  Alternates. 


638 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


Kinzer.  Jolm  Clarke  was  elected  President  of  the  Board  of 
Publication,  and  Nathan  Jones,  Secretary.  Editor  of  the  Sun- 
day-school literature,  J.  F.  Cowan.  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Home  and  Foreign  Missions,  F.  T.  Tagg.  Westminster,  Md., 
was  selected  as  the  place  for  the  next  General  Conference.  A 
separate  Board  of  Home  Missions  was  set  off,  and  the  new  Board 
elected  as  follows:  S.  A.  Fisher,  M.  L.  Barnett,  S.  K.  Spahr,  J.  W. 
Hawkins,  F.  M.  Durbin,  and  F.  H.  Pierpont.  It  was  located  at 
Grafton,  W.  Va.  Board  of  Ministerial  Education :  G.  G.  West- 
fall,  W.  P.  Herbert,  William  Hastings,  and  J.  H.  Claney.  J.  B. 
Walker  was  elected  Corresponding  Secretary.  Board  of  Governors 
for  Westminster  Theological  Seminary:  L.  D.  Stultz,  C.  E. 
Crenshaw,  J.  C.  Eoberts,  Benjamin  Stout,  and  J.  W.  Hull.  The 
Committee  on  Bevisals  made  a  number  of  reports  emendating  the 
Discipline,  for  which  see  the  revised  edition.  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions:  T.  B.  Graham,  C.  S.  Evans,  G.  B.  McElroy,  T.  J. 
Ogburn,  0.  V.  W.  Chandler,  William  White,  W.  W.  McCaslin, 
C.  J.  Yingling,  and  L.  W.  Bates.  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Woman's  Foreign  jVIissiouary  Society:  Mrs.  W.  K.  Gillespie,  Mrs. 
M.  A.  Miller,  Mrs.  J.  D.  Anderson,  Mrs.  J.  E.  Palmer,  Mrs.  F.  A. 
Brown,  Mrs.  A.  E.  O'Brien,  Mrs.  I.  D.  Coxen,  Mrs.  S.  K.  Spahr, 
and  Mrs.  M.  J.  Morgan.  Benjamin  Stout  was  elected  Correspond- 
ing Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions.  W.  S.  Hammond  was 
elected  Fraternal  Messenger  to  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Articles  of  Faith  submitted  a 
paper  offered  by  E.  J.  Drinkhouse,  and  naming  the  following 
committee  of  nine  to  formulate,  in  the  interval  of  the  General 
Conference,  Articles  of  Faith.  Committee:  L.  W.  Bates,  G.  B. 
McElroy,  B.  F.  Duggan,  A.  W.  Eobertson,  T.  H.  Lewis,  J.  J. 
Smith,  J.  S.  Thrap,  John  Scott,  and  T.  J.  Ogburn.  (See  supple- 
ment to  printed  Minutes  for  the  full  text  of  report.)  This  action 
was  instigated  by  alleged  latitude  of  doctrinal  teaching  claimed  in 
the  Xortliwest,  on  the  ground  that  Snethen  and  Shinn,  in  the 
original  Convention  of  the  Church,  did  not  favor  a  Creed  for  it, 
and  that  the  Articles  of  Eeligion  extant  were  not  adopted  by  said 
Convention.  The  facts  as  to  the  latter  allegation  are  set  forth 
in  this  History  in  the  connections  named.  The  committee,  after 
sundry  efforts  by  voluminous  correspondence  and  a  few  meetings, 
found  itself  divided,  and  their  report  to  the  ensuing  General  Con- 
ference was  incomplete,  and  the  committee  was  continued,  to 
report  again  to  the  General  Conference  of  1892.  Nothing  was 
done  by  it,  and  the  question  of  revision  will  probably  be  finally 


LEADING  CHURCH  ACTIVITIES 


639 


dropped.  It  leaves  the  Church  as  to  Doctrinal  Creed  in  the  same 
category  with  the  Methodisnis  generally,  that  is,  with  Wesley's 
abridgment  of  the  Articles  of  Keligion  of  the  Established  Church 
of  England,  which  do  not  embody  a  single  distinctive  doctrine 
of  Wesley  and  Methodism.  Happily,  Methodist  teaching  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  has  been  so  uniform  that  scarcely  a  shade 
of  difference  has  appeared,  what  are  called  Methodist  Standards 
being  accepted  as  the  criterion,  as  set  forth  in  Wesley's  "  Sermons 
and  Notes"  and  Watson's  "Institutes,"  etc.  It  was  found  that 
creed-mending  is  much  more  difficult  than  creed-making. 

The  licensure  of  women  to  preach  came  before  the  Conference 
on  report  that  certain  Annual  Conferences  had  so  done,  and  led 
to  the  adoption  of  this  resolution,  to  wit:  "That  the  following 
overture  be  made  to  the  Annual  Conferences;  viz.,  that  the  Con- 
stitution be  so  changed  as  to  grant  the  power  to  Annual  Confer- 
ences to  license  women  to  preach  the  gospel."  The  reports  of 
the  committees  are  found  in  full  as  an  appendix  to  the  printed 
Minutes,  and  are  synoptically  as  follows.  Ecumenical  Con- 
ference, committee  to  select  from  nominations  by  the  Annual 
Conferences  for  representatives  to  that  body  in  1891.  On  Jour- 
nals, report  that  they  had  before  them  those  of  thirty  out  of 
forty-five  Conferences,  and  found  them  in  good  order.  They  also 
find  seven  mission  Conferences.  On  Missions,  total  receipts  for 
the  quadrennium,  ^34,130.55;  expenditures,  ^33,130.  It  was  in 
evidence  of  the  activity,  invention,  and  ceaseless  travel  of  the 
Corresponding  Secretary,  as  well  as  the  enlarging  interest  excited 
in  the  people  for  foreign  missions.  The  Woman's  Foreign  Mis- 
sionary Society  made  its  quadrennial  report,  with  the  showing 
that  by  the  uncompensated  labors  of  volunteer  workers  organiza- 
tions were  effected  in  seventeen  Conferences,  with  three  hundred 
auxiliary  societies,  forty  mission  bands,  and  a  membership  of 
three  thousand.  The  receipts  for  the  period  from  all  sources 
were  $15,222.65.  The  Wbman^s  Missionary  Record  had  a  circu- 
lation of  seventeen  hundred,  and  was  self-sustaining.  Colleges, 
report  Adrian  and  Western  Maryland  as  in  flourishing  condition, 
with  mention  of  Yadkin  in  North  Carolina  and  Gittings  at  La 
Harpe,  111.,  Conference  institutions.  Hopeful  indications  of 
establishing  an  institution  of  learning  of  a  high  grade  having 
developed  in  the  West,  the  Conference  appointed  a  committee  of 
twenty  to  have  discretionary  charge  of  the  interest.  West- 
minster Theological  Seminary  reported  during  the  quadrennium 
thirty-seven  students,  and  from  its  organization  sixty-four^  and 


6-iO 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  tliese  sixteen  were  full  graduates.  Ministerial  Education, 
report  showed  amount  disbursed  for  the  quadrennium  for  all  pur- 
poses, ^10,906;  on  hand,  ^453;  permanent  fund,  ^4800. 

Communications  Committee  report  as  to  the  moot  of  union  with 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  "  Your  committee  are  of  opinion 
that  so  long  as  the  question  of  organic  union  is  under  the  con- 
sideration of  our  General  Conference,  our  Church  will  be  in  a 
continual  confusion  and  a  state  of  unrest,  and  there  will  be  a 
hinderance  of  our  work  in  every  department  of  the  Church,  which 
may  impede  and  seriously  impair  our  general  work.  Evidence  is 
not  wanting  that  such  influences  have  been  already  exerted.'' 
They  also  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  even  if  such  a  scheme 
were  practicable,  litigation  over  Church  property  and  trust  funds 
would  inevitably  occur;  and  they  are  of  "unanimous  opinion  that 
further  overtures  in  this  direction  should  now  cease,"  etc.  The 
Commissioners  to  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  and  the 
Congregational  Methodist  Church  made  report  of  the  futility  of 
their  efforts  for  union  with  these  closely  kindred  denominations ; 
and  the  General  Conference  thus  reached  the  conclusion  of  this 
writer,  that  the  only  wise  and  safe  ground  for  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  is  to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  its  way  in  soul- 
saving  and  rendering  more  efficient  its  high  ideal  of  government 
polity,  keeping,  like  sister  denominations,  an  open  door  for  any 
who  may  wish  to  share  in  its  distinctive  features  as  one  of  the 
flocks  of  the  Great  Shepherd's  fold.  The  Board  of  Publication 
made  a  full  report.  That  of  the  Baltimore  Directory  showed  net 
assets,  after  adding  ^4500  for  "good  will,"  ^8869.38,  there  being 
no  real  estate.  Circulation  of  the  MetJiodist  Protestant,  3535, 
February  29,  1888.  Sabbath-school  periodicals,  25,105.  The 
Pittsburgh  Directory  showed  for  March  1,  1888,  net  assets, 
^31,492.38,  the  realty,  or  Book  Concern  house,  included,  at  an 
appraisement  of  ^19,071.64,  as  also  of  "goodwill"  for  34500. 
Circulation  of  the  Methodist  Recorder,  paid  up,  was  5829.  The 
Sabbath-school  literature  is  given  in  round  numbers  for  each 
form,  and  is  inclusive  of  all  printed  for  both  publishing  houses; 
to  wit:  Scholars^  Quarterly,  60,000;  Teachers'  Journcd,  7000;  Our 
Morning  Guide,  20,000;  Our  Children,  35,000;  Lesson  Leaf,  20,000. 
Other  reports,  on  Temperance,  etc.,  need  no  special  mention. 
That  on  Statistics  is  by  far  the  most  complete  ever  submitted  to 
a  General  Conference.  It  shows  a  most  gratifj' ing  growth,  and 
will  bear  close  examination.    It  is  appended  in  full. 

The  General  Conference  adjourned  on  the  ninth  day,  ^lay  28, 
1888,  with  the  benediction. 


STATISTICS  OF  1888 
Report  of  Committee  on  Statistics 


641 


Annual  Conferences 

Itinerant 
Ministers 

Un  stationed 
Ministers  and 
Preachers 

Members 

Probationers 

Churches 

Parsonages 

Valuation 
of  Church 
Property 

Percentage  of 
Increase 

Percentage  of 
Decrease 

29 

3,746 

169 

64 

,3 

$68,000 

19 

Arkansas  

21 

12 

2,041 

43 

1 

7,275 

16 

Alabama,  Colored  .  . 

1() 

1 

900 

Baltimore,  Colored 

1<) 

5 

400 

100 

9 

4,500 

Central  Texas  .    .  . 

17 

19 

1,955 

7 

7 

2 

25 

Colorado,  Texas    .  . 

27 

16 

1,205 

67 

11 

2 

2,825 

136 

Colorado,  Colored  . 

«) 

484 

11 

2,458 

Deep  River  .... 

<) 

2 

500 

12 

500 

Fort  Smith  .... 

47 

22 

1,700 

43 

12 

1 

8,000 

28 

Georgia  

2i) 

13 

2,864 

94 

43 

15,700 

30 

Georgia,  Colored  .  . 

41 

28 

1,125 

57 

.33 

7,560 

21 

3 

844 

4() 

12^ 

8 

38,400 

18 

40 

65 

7,014 

144 

106^ 

15 

116,625 

2 

54 

17 

3,196 

19 

45 

18 

75,000 

8 

52 

38 

1,603 

33 

16 

11 

24,340 

72 

30 

7 

1,300 

21 

1,650 

8 

Louisiana .    .    .    .  . 

5 

4 

1,900 

31 

7,340 

68 

McCains  

12 

12 

587 

7 

4 

1,957 

Maryland  

110 

62 

15,332 

1,727 

234 

62 

863,045 

5 

(U 

32 

2,676 

73 

42 

24 

73,650 

22 

Mississippi  .... 

14 

8 

1,175 

14 

34 

3,300 

10 

Minnesota  .... 

18 

280 

20 

4 

2 

3,125 

55 

3,257 

85 

26 

4 

17,500 
257,750 

11 

Muskingum  .... 

51 

55 

11,777 

83 

138 

14 

16 

New  York  .... 

27 

2 

2,207 

39 

25 

11 

164,500 

New  Jersey  .... 

25 

22 

2,868 

191 

31 

12 

123,900 

40 

North  Carolina  . 

IK) 

54 

13,311 

158 

181^ 

5 

76,380 

8 

North  Missouri . 

30 

55 

3,250 

33 

26 

4 

22,000 

154 

20 

12 

449 

7 

6 

3 

5,700 

North  Illinois 

34 

24 

2,421 

20 

461 

16 

86,450 

5 

North  Arkansas 

20 

12 

1,000 

15 

13^ 

1 

6,900 

North  Mississippi  . 

14 

14 

708 

15 

16 

3,600 
282  800 

5 

Ohio  

52 

48 

6  759 

225 

102 

2(5 

Onondaga  .... 

10 

46 

1  965 

103 

34 

25 

92,700 

Oregon  

6 

4 

200 

2 

1 

15^000 

Pittsburgh  .... 

4G 

46 

7,409 

117 

74 

23 

555,075 

Pennsylvania 

17 

13 

1,166 

17 

18S 

5 

26,775 

105 

South  Illinois    .    .  . 

42 

27 

2,519 

136 

41 

16 

25,100 

South  Carolina  .    .  . 

22 

10 

2,000 

37 

3 

14,350 

80 

Spring  River,  Colored 

Tennessee  .... 

19 

'*4 

' '  930 

17 

*  16,000 

io 

17 

1,595 

Vo 

18^ 

"5 

8,925 

12 

50 

35 

5,509 

153 

723 

31,300 

*69 

West  Michigan  .    .  . 

25 

43 

1,296 

16 

26^ 

12 

38,500 

'9 

West  Virginia   .    .  . 

71 

119 

13,783 

192 

144 

21 

134,825 

'5 

West  Tennessee     .  . 

1(5 

2 

951 

17 

5,000 

17 

AVest  Arkansas .    .  . 

15 

4 

1,300 

31 

1 

10,000 

10 

Red  River*  .... 

9 

2 

25 

10 

1,000 

Total,  1888     .    .  . 

1,4(53 

1,125 

141,557 

4,271 

2,039 

357 

$3,342,050 

Net  gain,  1888    .  . 

123 

206 

13,891 

674 

184 

46 

314,620 

12  per  ct. 

13  per  ct. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

Thomas  Kelley,  Chairman,^  Wm.  J.  Spear, 

J.  L.  Scarborough,  J.  T.  Harris,  Sec^y. 

J.  H.  LusE, 

VOL.  II  —  2t 


642 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Among  the  doings  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  was  the  authorization  of  an  order  of  deacon- 
esses, since  carried  into  effect  on  a  limited  scale.  It  also  pro- 
posed that  their  missionary  work  in  foreign  lands  should  be 
known  as  that  of  the  "Methodist"  Church,  and  they  invited 
cooperation  from  other  Methodisms  in  it,  as  suggested  by  Mis- 
sionary Bishop  Thoburn.  It  was  much  criticised  in  the  official 
papers  at  the  time,  but  nothing  came  of  it,  inasmuch  as  in  its 
finality  it  became  evident  that  they  would  hold  the  control  of  the 
arrangements.^  Dr.  John  Scott,  retiring  from  the  editorship  of 
the  Metliodist  Recorder,  after  fifteen  years  of  service  in  several 
periods,  left  him  free  to  reenter  the  pastorate,  which  he  did,  and 
continued  for  seven  years,  finally  retiring  from  active  relations 
in  1895,  in  his  seventy-fifth  year.  Dr.  Stephens,  his  successor, 
brought  to  the  position  much  native  ability  and  an  extensive 
culture,  and  the  official  paper  maintained  its  high  rank  under  his 
guidance.  The  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Missions, 
Rev.  F.  T.  Tagg,  was  authorized  to  visit  London  as  a  delegate  to 
the  World's  Conference  on  Missions,  to  represent  the  Church, 
which  he  did  during  the  summer  of  1888.  The  official  paper  of 
Baltimore  published,  in  June,  1888,  a  list  of  1465  new  subscrip- 
tions received  during  the  past  fourteen  months,  as  offsetting  a 
net  circulation  reported  to  the  General  Conference  of  3535,  the 
difference  being  in  default  of  renewals  and  discontinuances  for 
non-payment.  It  exposed  a  radical  defect,  the  responsibility  of 
which  it  is  not  hard  to  place.  The  "  Year  Book  "  for  January, 
1889,  made  a  carefully  tabulated  statement  of  the  relative  increase 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  and  Methodist  Protestant  Churches 
for  six  decades  as  2860  per  cent  for  the  latter,  and  2048.66  for  the 
former.  There  was  also  published  about  this  time  a  comparison 
of  the  net  growth  in  membership  of  the  Baltimore  and  the  Mary- 
land Conferences,  showing  5i  per  cent  increase  for  the  former 
during  1888,  and  12  per  cent  for  the  latter.    They  occupy  rela- 

1  iVIissionary  Bishop  Thoburn's  plan  "was  a  fair  one  ;  but  after  the  General  Con- 
ference adjourned,  it  so  happened  that  Bishop  Fowler  of  the  M.  E.  Church  and 
Bishop  Wilson  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  met  in  Japan  during  a  missionary  tour 
of  each  around  the  world,  and  putting  their  heads  together,  —  another  case  of 
officialism  killing  a  liberal  purpose,  —  they  discovered  that  the  federative  features 
of  the  plan  were  not  to  their  Episcopal  liking,  so  they  interjected  certain  modifi- 
cations to  give  the  new  "  Methodist  "  missionary  work  a  "  strong  government  "  ; 
that  is,  Episcopal  control,  so  that  the  brethren  could  not  enter  the  plan.  Talk 
of  organic  union  !  when  even  the  federation  Bishop  Thoburn  proposal  is  thus 
eschewed  by  "  authority  "  in  the  interval  of  the  General  Conference. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  CHURCH  BY  CONTRASTS  643 

tively  the  same  territory,  and  operate  under  the  same  conditions, 
and  yet  a  membership  of  fifty  thousand  and  a  ministry  of  nearly 
two  hundred  in  tlie  Baltimore  Conference  secure  a  net  gain  of  5}^ 
for  the  year,  while  the  Maryland  Conference,  with  a  membership 
of  less  than  eighteen  thousand,  and  a  ministry  under  one  hun- 
dred, secures  a  net  gain  for  the  year  of  12  per  cent.  Efforts  have 
been  made  to  show  that  this  is  due,  even  on  a  larger  scale,  taking 
the  whole  Church  as  the  factor  in  either  case,  to  what  is  called 
the  law  of  diminishing  returns.  It  is  plain  enough  where  material 
resources  alone  enter  into  the  calculation,  as  in  agriculture  and 
other  departments.  A  virgin  soil  declines  in  fertility  under  con- 
stant cultivation,  and  the  returns  respond  to  this  law  of  diminish- 
ing crops,  etc.  But  the  writer  is  unable  to  concede  that  where 
the  supernatural  is  the  main  factor,  and  all  other  conditions  are 
equal,  how  it  can  be  made  to  apply  as  to  spiritual  results;  neither 
is  he  able  to  explain  such  facts  as  are  here  given.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  the  ecclesiastical  system  under  which  the  one 
operates  cannot  demonstrate  its  superiority  as  against  the  other 
on  the  line  of  numerical  increase  respectively. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1888,  the  Baker  family,  of  Buckeys- 
town,  Md.,  contributed  $4000  for  a  President's  house  at  Western 
Maryland  College.  From  May  to  January  the  official  papers 
contained  no  obituaries  of  early  Reformers.  But  few  of  them 
remained.  January,  1889,  the  Methodist  Recorder  celebrated  its 
semi-centennial  with  new  type  and  an  excellent  make-up,  under 
the  new  editor.  Dr.  Stephens.  In  April,  1889,  the  editor  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  was  suddenly  prostrated  with  bronchial 
hemorrhage,  though  after  some  months  of  surcease  of  labor  he 
partially  resumed  the  pen  and  the  management  of  the  official 
paper.  Later  he  was  found  daily  at  his  post,  with  the  assistance 
of  Rev.  Dr.  Southerland  until  the  spring  of  1890,  and  of  Rev. 
Dr.  McGregor  for  the  ensuing  two  years  to  the  General  Conference 
of  1892.  With  these  editorial  associates  he  divided  his  salary, 
and  their  bright  and  piquant  pens  did  much  to  demonstrate  the 
inadequacy  of  any  one  man  for  all  the  labor  of  a  sixteen-page 
weekly  religious  paper.  The  general  agents  of  the  Church  were, 
if  anything,  more  diligent  than  ever  in  Annual  Conference  visita- 
tions, with  an  improving  outlook  in  all  sections  of  the  work  and 
in  all  departments. 

Necrology.  Rev.  Henry  Palmer  was  born  in  Ireland,  May  12, 
1812;  came  to  America  a  Methodist  in  1828,  united  with  the 
Church  in  Pittsburgh  under  Dr.  Brown  in  1829,  was  licensed  to 


644  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


preach;  joined  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  in  1842,  was  several 
times  President,  and  a  member  of  the  Union  Convention  of  1877. 
In  1879  he  was  superannuated,  and  departed  this  life  peacefully 
December  23,  1888.  Nathan  Smith  of  Burrsville,  Md.,  a  Ee- 
former  of  1828,  deceased  March  16,  1889,  aged  eighty-seven 
years.  Kev.  Redmond  Boyd  of  Arkansas,  and  later  of  Texas, 
was  born  January  4,  1823 ;  united  with  the  Reformers  in  1844 ; 
was  a  pioneer  of  the  cause  southwest  of  the  Mississippi,  an 
organizer  and  never-ceasing  itinerant  in  Texas  until  within  a  few 
years  of  his  i^eaceful  departure  at  Cooper,  Texas,  May  6,  1889. 
Eev.  William  H.  Wills,  D.D.,  of  North  Carolina  Conference, 
born  August,  1809;  united  with  the  new  Church  in  1830;  licensed 
to  preach,  April  18,  1831;  often  President  of  the  Annual  Con- 
ference; a  member  of  the  General  Conference  of  1846,  and  of 
those  of  1850,  1858,  1866,  1870,  and  the  General  Convention  of 
1877.  He  was  President  of  that  of  1866,  and  with  the  Confer- 
ence visited  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  made  the 
address.  His  active  relation  to  the  Annual  Conference  was  often 
interrupted  by  ill  health,  but  he  never  lost  a  commanding  influ- 
ence. Loyal  to  the  Church  and  loyal  to  his  Conference,  he  was 
always  found  in  the  front.  An  acceptable  preacher  and  a  ready 
debater,  holding  the  pen  of  a  legible  writer,  he  engrossed  the 
minutes  of  the  early  Conventions  and  General  Conferences  by 
order  heretofore  noticed;  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  official 
paper,  with  clear  convictions  and  moral  courage,  he  became  well 
known  throughout  the  general  Church.  He  yielded  to  paralysis 
after  a  long  disability,  and  his  characteristic  firmness  was  ex- 
hibited in  his  dying  word.  Being  asked  if  he  would  have  some 
brandy,  he  promptly  answered,  "No,"  and  sank  into  the  embrace 
of  death,  June  22,  1889,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  his  age.  His 
obituary  covers  six  columns  of  the  official  paper,  a  merited  tribute 
to  his  unusual  worth.  Rev.  N.  G.  Andrews  of  the  Georgia  Con- 
ference, born  November  30,  1816;  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  in  1834;  became  acquainted  with  Reform  litera- 
ture, and  in  1836  was  licensed  to  preach,  and  for  a  series  of  years 
afterward  did  much  missionary  work  for  the  cause  in  his  native 
state;  deceased  August,  1889.  Rev.  John  Sexsmith,  born  in  Vir- 
ginia, 1815,  was  resident  in  Alexandria  and  Washington  during 
the  Reform  controversy,  and  became  deeply  interested  after  his 
conversion  through  the  early  new  Church  preachers ;  was  licensed 
to  preach,  removed  to  West  Virginia,  and  united  with  the  Con- 
ference in  1847;  thence  to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  thence 


CALVIN  TOMPKINS  AND  J.  J.  AMOS  645 


to  Missouri,  where  he  took  charge  of  the  Des  Moines  mission  in 
1851,  and  spent  most  of  the  remainder  of  his  useful  life  in  its 
development,  adhering  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  during 
the  separation  of  1858-77.  He  was  partially  paralyzed  a  few 
years  prior  to  his  decease,  which  occurred  February  17,  1890. 
Joseph  Radclift'e,  born  March  6,  1804,  united  with  the  Reformers 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  in  1828,  and  remained  steadfast  until 
his  departure  March  27,  1890,  at  Trappe,  Md. 

Calvin  Tompkins,  born  in  New  Jersey,  January  31, 1793;  served 
in  the  War  of  1812,  converted  at  a  camp-meeting  near  Haverstraw, 
N.  Y.,  united  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1820,  at 
Newark,  N.  J.,  and  in  1830  embraced  the  principles  of  Reform. 
He  introduced  the  cause  in  New  York  City,  and  afterward  at 
Tomkins'  Cove,  where  he  prospered  in  business  and  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  exemplary  life.  His  liberality  was  proverbial, 
erecting  a  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  the  Cove  and  another 
near  by  at  his  own  charges.  Also  a  public  school  building,  at  a 
cost  of  $22,000,  as  well  as  a  bequest  of  $10,000  to  the  endow- 
ment fund  of  Adrian  College.  He  disbursed  his  Master's  money 
freely  through  his  long  life,  holding  all  the  official  positions  of 
the  Church,  and  in  his  old  age  continued  to  teach  in  the  Sabbath- 
school.  He  departed  this  life  peacefully  June,  1890,  in  his 
ninety-seventh  year.  His  memory  is  blessed.  J.  J.  Amos,  born 
in  Kentucky,  September  30,  1803  ;  converted  in  1826,  and  being 
of  an  inquiring  mind,  identified  himself  with  the  first  Reformers 
of  his  neighborhood,  and  maintained  through  life  his  ecclesiastical 
convictions  in  a  plain,  positive,  and  radical  manner.  Being  at 
first  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  he  was  ar- 
raigned for  trial  for  "inveighing  against  the  discipline,"  but  he 
defended  his  course  so  intelligently  that  the  church  before  which 
he  demanded  to  be  tried  failed  to  convict.  As  a  result  he  and 
fifty -five  others  withdrew,  and  adopted  the  articles  of  association 
of  the  new  Church  in  1830.  In  1839  he  removed  to  Rush  County, 
Ind.,  and  was  licensed  to  preach,  and  was  for  a  short  time  a 
member  of  the  Ohio  Conference.  He  was  elected  to  twenty-three 
Annual  Conferences,  three  General,  and  to  the  Union  Convention 
of  1877.  He  greatly  prospered  in  business,  and  dispensed  his 
accumulations  liberally.  He  gave  $21,000  toward  the  endow- 
ment of  Adrian  College,  and  $6000  to  other  Church  interests, 
and  had  an  open  hand  for  any  good  work.  He  departed  this  life 
in  1890. 

Rev.  James  Robison  was  born  in  Pennsylvania,  June  27,  1812. 


646 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


Converted  in  1832,  he  united  with  the  Keform  church  at  Fair- 
mont, W.  Va.  Feeling  a  call  to  preach,  he  entered  Allegheny 
College  in  1834,  and  in  1837  united  with  the  Pittsburgh  Con- 
ference, and  at  once  proved  himself  one  of  the  most  active, 
successful  ministers,  both  as  a  revivalist  and  church  builder. 
He  was  a  member  of  most  of  the  General  Conferences  and  Con- 
ventions since  1850,  and  in  1872  was  elected  Book  Agent  at  Pitts- 
burgh, and  twice  thereafter.  Eeentering  the  ministry,  after 
deafness  disqualified  him  for  the  position  last  named,  he  was 
active  as  ever  in  church  building,  until  his  strong  constitution 
gave  way,  he  lapsed  into  senility,  and  finally  passed  away, 
August,  1890.  Eev.  Augustus  Webster,  D.D.,  born  December  8, 
1808 ;  educated  at  the  University  of  Maryland,  he  followed  the 
counsel  of  Methodist  parents,  was  converted  under  Kev.  William 
Kesley  of  the  new  Church  about  1830;  he  felt  his  call  to  preach, 
and  in  1832  was  admitted  to  the  Maryland  Conference.  His  after 
career  has  been  largely  anticipated  in  these  pages.  For  learning, 
piety,  and  successful  ministrations  he  filled  the  place  vacated  by 
the  great  leaders  of  Reform  in  his  native  State.  He  was  indeed 
a  "burning  and  a  shining  light"  in  all  relations.  His  obsequies 
took  place  October  29,  1890  (deceased  October  26),  from  St.  John's 
church,  Baltimore,  with  which  he  was  connected  as  pastor  or 
pastor  emeritus  for  forty -seven  years.  Addresses  were  made  by 
Eev.  Dr.  J.  J.  Murray,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  S.  Edwards  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  Rev.  Dr.  A.  W.  Green  of  St.  John's, 
Madison  Avenue,  officially  kin  to  the  Liberty  Street  church.  His 
end  was  not  only  peaceful,  but  triumphant,  and  his  remains  repose 
in  Greenmount  cemetery.  Within  a  month,  or  in  November, 
1890,  Rev.  A.  A.  Lipscomb,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  departed  this  life. 
He  was  born  September  16,  1816,  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  and  was 
the  eldest  of  three  sons  of  the  Rev.  W.  C.  Lipscomb.  A  student 
from  his  youth,  furnished  with  the  best  educational  facilities, 
he  grew  in  intellectual  stature,  until  few  names  were  more  hon- 
ored in  the  South-land  for  all  that  is  reputable  in  learning,  piety, 
and  integrity,  both  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  and  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South.  Resident  in  Maryland,  Alabama,  and 
Georgia,  his  life  divided  between  the  itinerancy  of  his  father's 
Church  and  educational  work,  he  spent  his  days  in  honorable 
employ  and  struggle  with  a  feeble  constitution.  He  remained 
true  to  the  convictions  of  his  youth  as  a  Reform  Methodist,  and 
departed  with  his  name  enrolled  as  an  unstationed  minister  of 
the  Montgomery,  Ala.,  church.    His  remains  repose  on  the  banks 


SURCEASE  OF  UNION  AGITATIONS  647 


of  the  beautiful  Oconee  River.  Samuel  S.  Barton,  born  September 
11,  1798,  deceased  October  27,  1890  —  an  original  Reformer  of 
Baltimore  city. 

The  National  Methodist  of  Indiana  was  changed  to  the  Methodist, 
and  Kev.  H.  Stackhouse  took  charge,  and  pushed  it  with  energy 
for  a  few  years.  The  Southern  Christian  Advance  was  issued 
from  Corsicana,  Tex.,  a  bi-monthly  at  $1.50  a  year;  Rev.  Edward 
L.  Wood,  editor.  It  survived  a  few  years.  The  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  met  in  May, 
1890,  and  was  favored  with  a  fraternal  delegation  from  the 
British  Conference  for  the  first  time  in  its  history.  True,  they 
numbered  1,200,000,  and  there  were  150,000  Methodist  Protes- 
tants in  the  land;  but  the  prejudices  of  the  past,  slavery  in  the 
former  and  "  radicalism in  the  latter,  with  misinformation  hard 
to  overcome,  led  our  British  cousins  to  overlook  them.  It  was 
reported  in  earlier  days  that  English  Methodist  preachers  and 
members  emigrating  to  this  country  were  advised  to  "inquire  for 
Bishop  Simpson's  Church,"  and  there  deposit  their  certificates. 
It  was  a  stroke  of  policy  in  both  the  parent  bodies.  The  time 
was  when  no  Episcopal  Methodist  would  think  of  uniting  with 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  however  convenient  it  might 
be,  or  demanded  by  circumstances;  but  this  has  largely  passed 
away,  and  now  it  is  no  unfrequent  thing,  thereby  compensating 
the  Church  in  some  measure  for  the  great  depletion  from  change 
of  residence  and  the  necessity  of  refuge  by  its  members  on  account 
of  the  existence  almost  everywhere  of  Methodist  Episcopal 
churches,  and  the  absence  of  others.  The  Corresponding  Secre- 
tary of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  had  issued,  first  as  a 
quarterly  and  then  as  a  monthly,  the  Missionary  Bulletin,  for 
larger  and  more  frequent  distribution  of  such  intelligence  among 
the  people.  The  new  Board  of  Home  Missions,  under  Secretary 
Stout,  pressed  its  claims,  and  it  has  grown  into  a  most  helpful 
branch  of  the  general  work.    (See  Appendix  to  first  volume.) 

With  the  surcease  of  "  Union  "  agitations  the  Church  set  itself 
to  denominational  evangelization,  and  there  was  a  marked  growth 
everywhere,  clearly  indicating  that  it  has  a  providential  mission 
which  is  not  to  end  simply  when  its  permeating  force  wins  for 
acceptance  its  principles  in  kindred  organizations.  There  is  one 
sign,  and  one  only,  that  should  receive  the  prayerful  notice  of 
the  Church,  to  wit:  should  the  time  ever  come  when  numerical 
decay  through  a  quadrennium  presages  loss  of  autonomous  power 
in  soul-saving,  then  may  the  question  of  its  accomplished  purpose 


648 


HISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


be  considered,  but  that  time  never  has  been,  and  probably  never 
will  be.  The  Head  of  the  Church  does  not  forget  history,  if  some 
of  his  members  do,  and  the  watchful  care  of  the  Master  will  con- 
tinue to  accentuate  the  deeds  and  memory  of  the  Fathers  as  fully 
worthy  of  it,  and  in  many  points  parallel  with  the  "Deed  of 
Demission,"  and  the  act  of  the  Scottish  clergy  under  the  lead  of 
Chalmers,  leaving  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland,  and  with 
it  not  their  living  only,  but  •entailing  a  heritage  of  defamation 
and  persecution.  If  the  scale  was  larger,  it  was  no  grander,  and 
Presbyterianism  has  not  suffered  it  to  die.  It  abates  not  one  jot 
of  its  force  to  declare  tritely  that  a  Church  cannot  live  on  the 
memory  of  its  past;  it  is  sufficient  answer  to  say  that,  with  such 
a  past  in  either  case,  the  Church  does  not  deserve  to  live  that  for- 
gets or  ignores  it. 

As  one  result  of  the  Union  agitation  with  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  in  the  Virginia  Conference,  certain  members, 
under  the  advice  of  an  ex-Methodist  Protestant  minister  and 
lawyer,  seized  the  church  in  Heathville,  Va.,  and  held  possession 
for  a  series  of  years.  A  suit  for  recovery  in  a  lower  court  was 
decided  by  the  local  judge,  under  the  specious  pleading  of  the 
minister-lawyer,  against  the  people;  but,  satisfied  of  the  justice 
of  their  cause,  at  great  expense  they  carried  it  to  the  Court  of 
Appeals,  and  after  tedious  delays,  in  the  winter  of  1891,  Juc\ge 
Lacy,  in  Eichmond,  Va.,  reversed  the  decision  of  the  lower  court, 
and  remanded  the  property  to  the  people  as  the  legal  holders,  and 
since  that  period  they  have  been  in  undisturbed  possession.  (See 
Baltimore  paper,  January  28,  1891,  for  full  text  of  this  decision.) 
The  right  of  women  to  be  delegates  to  the  General  Conference  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  this  year  submitted,  as 
heretofore  stated,  to  a  popular  vote  of  the  Church,  but  as  it  be- 
came known  that  it  would  have  no  legislative  effect,  out  of 
1,200,000  voters,  male  and  female,  not  one-fourth  of  them  took 
part  in  the  sham  proceeding;  but  of  these  a  decisive  majority 
was  in  the  affirmative.  Carried  to  the  ensuing  General  Confer- 
ence, it  was  defeated,  as  it  required  a  three-fourths  majority  to 
approve.  It  was,  however,  again  referred  to  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences, and  these  have  by  an  enormous  majority  voted  affirma- 
tively. It  remains  to  be  seen  what  the  Conference  of  1896  will 
do  with  this  action.  It  is  profoundly  important,  as  the  General 
Conference,  meeting  simultaneously,  will  be  called  for  a  final 
decision  also  on  the  same  question.  The  Christian  Endeavor 
movement,  on  an  interdenominational  basis,  was  zealously  es- 


THE  HEATHVILLE  CASE 


649 


ponsed  by  the  young  people  of  the  Church,  and  has  grown  to 
nearly  one  thousand  societies,  represented  in  literature  by  Our 
Young  People,  a  weekly  issue.  Kev.  Dr.  Thomas  JI.  Lewis, 
President  of  Western  Maryland  College,  was  deputized  to  visit 
the  missionary  work  in  Japan  and  report.  He  fulfilled  the  mis- 
sion, and  with  it  made  a  tour  of  the  world,  returning  in  Sep- 
tember, 1891.  Rev.  J.  C.  Berrien  was  elected  to  fill  the  place 
of  J.  B.  Walker,  deceased,  as  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the 
Ministerial  Board.    He  at  once  entered  upon  his  duties. 

Rev.  J.  B.  Walker  departed  this  life,  of  pneumonia,  January 
14,  1891,  at  Adrian,  Mich.  He  was  born  October  26,  1828,  in 
Tennessee,  removed  to  Ohio,  and  was  converted  in  his  youth  in 
the  Church.  After  a  struggle  for  an  education,  he  was  licensed 
to  preach,  and  united  with  the  Ohio  Conference  in  1849.  A 
burning  zeal  characterized  his  work  from  the  beginning,  and  he 
soon  became  deeply  interested  in  ministerial  education,  and  may 
be  regarded  as  the  father  of  this  work.  To  establish  the  society 
he  travelled  unremittingly,  covering  the  entire  territory  with  his 
earnest  pleading,  joining  with  it  at  several  periods  the  agency  of 
Western  Maryland,  and  also  of  Adrian,  College.  He  literally 
spent  himself  in  the  service  of  the  Church,  contracting  his  death 
illness  from  exposure  in  labor  lying  so  near  his  heart,  so  that 
evien  in  the  delirium  of  fever  he  was  pleading  for  the  "boys." 
Richard  Vanzant  deceased  August  23,  1890,  aged  eighty  years, 
near  Mount  Airey,  Md.,  an  original  Reformer  and  devoted 
Christian.  Rev.  J.  R.  Turner,  born  in  North  Carolina  in  1801, 
removed  to  Georgia  in  1828,  an  original  Reformer,  and  a  member 
of  that  Conference,  deceased  June,  1890.  A  group  of  loyal  lay- 
men will  fittingly  close  this  obituary  paragraph:  Robert  H. 
Marshall  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa. ;  Woolman  J.  Gibson  of  Centreville, 
Md. ;  J.  H.  Harper  and  Archible  Perritt  of  Tennessee,  all  of 
them  original  Reformers,  centres  of  influence,  devoted,  faithful, 
and  true. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


Recognition  and  participation  of  representatives  in  the  Second  Ecumenical  Con- 
ference at  Washington,  D.  C,  1891;  Union,  and  what  came  of  it;  New  Con- 
nexion Methodist  courtesies  —  Obituaries  of  Reformers  —  Sixteenth  General 
Conference  at  Westminster,  Md.,  May,  1892;  roster  of  members;  Dr.  J.  W. 
Hering,  President ;  presence  of  women  delegates  and  the  action  thereon ;  over- 
tures to  the  Annual  Conferences  on  the  subject ;  election  of  General  Conference 
officers :  reports  from  the  Book  Concerns  and  general  Agents ;  fraternal  dele- 
gates—  The  Young  People's  Societies  of  Christian  Endeavor;  Foreign  Mission 
work;  statistics  ;  twelve  per  cent  increase  numerically  for  the  quadrennium  — 
The  search  for  a  "  Constitution  "  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  but  unavailing;  blunders 
of  1784  and  1808;  efforts  to  correct  historical  errors  in  that  Church  —  Obitua- 
ries: Rev.  D.  W.  Bates,  Francis  Brown,  George  Nestor,  and  others  —  Growth  of 
the  Church  ;  C.  E.  Societies  of  the  denomination ;  rapid  increase —  Our  Church 
Record  established  in  North  Carolina  by  Rev.  J.  F.  M'Culloch  —  Obit.  Hon. 
C.  W.  Button;  financial  depression  as  affecting  the  Church  —  Dr.  Mather's 
bequest  to  the  Kansas  University  —  Texas  Westminster  College  set  on  foot  — 
Aged  People's  Home  in  Maryland  —  Great  meetings  of  laymen  in  the  M.E. 
Church  demanding  lay-representation ;  practical  difficulties  entailed  by  the 
system  in  the  way  of  such  Reform;  who  is  responsible?  —  Obituaries:  Rev. 
J.  K.  Nichols  and  others  —  The  German  work  under  Rev.  S.  Heininger. 

The  second  Ecumenical  Methodist  Conference  assembled  at 
Metropolitan  Methodist  Episcopal  church,  Washington,  D.  C, 
October  7,  1891,  and  continued  in  session  until  the  20th.  Two 
hundred  delegates  from  the  European  section  and  three  hundred 
from  the  American  were  present,  occupying  the  ground  floor  of 
the  church,  which  has  a  seating  capacity  of  about  two  thousand. 
It  was  always  well  filled,  though  the  admission  was  by  tickets,  at 
every  session.  The  proceedings  were  published  in  a  five-hundred- 
page  octavo  volume,  so  that  references  must  be  under  severe  limi- 
tation of  space.  It  was  in  every  sense  a  representative  body  of 
world  Methodists  from  every  clime.  The  programme  was  well 
arranged  and  smoothly  carried  out,  and  much  impartiality  ob- 
served by  those  who  framed  it.  Several  incidents  have  been  re- 
corded earlier  in  this  History,  and  our  notations  must  be  confined 
to  participation  in  it  as  a  Church.  Xine  delegates  were  allowed 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and,  after  several  substitutions, 
the  following  seven  stood  to  represent  ic:  Eev.  J.  J.  Smith,  D.D., 

650 


ECUMENICAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1891  651 


of  New  York,  Rev.  T.  B.  Appleget  of  New  Jersey,  Rev.  J.  T. 
Murray,  D.D.,  of  Maryland,  and  Rev.  T.  J.  Ogburn  of  North 
Carolina;  with  Hon.  Charles  W.  Button  of  Maryland,  W.  C. 
Whitaker  of  North  Carolina,  and  James  S.  Topham  of  Maryland. 
T.  J.  Ogburn  read  an  able  paper,  which  was  well  received,  as  also 
T.  B.  Appleget,  both  from  the  regular  programme.    J.  T.  Murray 
presided  over  the  Conference  on  the  seventh  day  most  acceptably. 
There  was  much  discussion  of  Organic  Union  between  certain 
groups  of  kindred  Methodists,  that  of  the  American  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  the  American  Zion  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  the  Colored  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  being  most 
prominent,  and,  after  a  caucus,  formally  announced  as  inchoately 
accomplished ;  but  after  various  tentations  subsequently,  it  came 
to  nothing;  thus  for  almost  a  decad  of  times  demonstrating  that 
such  things  are  the  vapor  of  good-will,  but  held  in  check  by  the 
jealousies  of  officialism.    So  there  was  talk  of  union  among  the 
British  brethren,  but  the  one  essential  to  it,  as  brusquely  put  by  a 
delegate  from  the  Bible  Christians,  "  Let  the  stronger  begin  with 
concessions,"  met  with  no  response;  and  it  died.    The  Americans 
were  more  chary  of  it,  though,  as  already  recited,  Bishop  Foster, 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  made  an  impassioned  appeal 
to  the  delegates  of  the  Church,  South,  which  Dr.  Hoss  stampeded 
by  demand  for  honest  non-interference  with  their  Southern  work 
as  a  condition  precedent.    A  hymn  book  for  universal  Methodism 
was  talked  of,  but  interjected  difficulties  loomed  up,  and  this  most 
sensible  and  really  practicable  suggestion,  as  a  bond  of  union, 
came  to  nothing.    It  was  a  grand  opportunity  for  federating  the 
Methodists  in  foreign  missionary  work;  but  federation  was  not 
mooted.    In  the  matter  of  fraternity,  however,  the  assembly  was 
a  spectacle  of  Christian  brotherhood,  and,  bating  a  few  partisan  in- 
cidents among  the  British,  was  an  honor  to  these  sons  of  Wesley. 
Rev.  J.  C.  Watts,  D.D.,  of  the  New  Connexion  Methodists,  early 
Reform  congeners  in  England,  preached  for  Methodist  Protes- 
tants in  Baltimore,  and  was  hospitably  entertained  by  Dr.  Ward, 
President  of  Westminster  Theological  Seminary,  Maryland,  the 
college  having  conferred  upon  brother  Watts  his  doctorate,  the 
first  ever  received  by  a  minister  of  his  Church;  inasmuch  as  their 
own  college  had  not  felt  free  to  dispense  such  honors  at  home, 
and  the  colleges  of  the  parent  Methodism  had  never  found  it  ex- 
pedient to  recognize  their  naughty  church  cousins  in  this  way. 
Several  other  of  their  leading  men  have  since  been  honored  by 
Western  Maryland  College.    A  commission  of  eighty  was  ap- 


652  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


pointed  to  call  another  Ecumenical  Conference  for  1901.  It  may 
be,  by  that  time,  federation  may  be  reached,  for  which  every 
Methodist  should  devoutly  pray  who  has  Christ-love  enough  to 
elevate  the  Cross  above  his  denominational  symbol. 

H.  J.  Heinz  and  W.  K.  Gillespie  of  Pittsburgh  initiated  a  lay- 
men's work,  which  has  since  developed  into  a  Laymen's  Bureau 
for  church  extension,  and  has  done  good  work.  A  similar  organ- 
ization had  been  made  in  Baltimore  for  local  church  extension, 
and  should  be  initiated  in  all  the  larger  Conferences.  By  the 
will  of  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Dodge  of  Baltimore,  though  not  a  member 
of  this  Church,  but  intimately  associated,  $2000  was  bequeathed 
to  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  in  June,  1892. 
The  Methodist  Episcopal  Laymen's  Association  of  Baltimore 
petitioned  for  equal  representation  to  the  ensuing  General  Con- 
ference at  Omaha,  Neb.  It  was  but  one  of  numerous  petitions 
of  the  same  kind  quadrennially  going  to  that  body.  Thirteen 
young  itinerants  were  received  by  the  Maryland  Annual  Confer- 
ence at  its  April  session,  1892.  Every  one  of  them  could  have 
gone  to  the  strong,  influential  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  but 
they  followed  their  convictions  into  a  Church  respecting  their 
Christian  manhood  and  personal  liberty. 

William  Kirkwood  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  departed  this  life 
January  2,  1892,  in  the  ninety-third  year  of  his  age.  He  was  one 
of  the  charter  members  of  the  church  in  that  city,  and  merits 
this  mention.  Thomas  W.  Ewing  deceased  January  5,  1892, 
aged  seventy  years.  He  had  been  associated  with  the  Church 
from  early  boyhood  at  St.  John's  and,  later,  with  the  East  Bal- 
timore station,  also  as  clerk  to  the  Baltimore  Book  Concern, 
and  Agent  until  1874.  John  Smith  of  Westminster,  Md., 
deceased  March  14,  1892,  in  his  eighty-fifth  year.  He  was  a  son 
of  Joshua  Smith,  and  from  his  boyhood  absorbed  Eeform  princi- 
ples from  such  leaders  as  Snethen,  Shinn,  Jennings,  Dorsey,  and 
others,  who  were  frequent  visitors  at  his  father's  house.  In  1859 
he  became  a  member  of  the  Church,  and,  by  his  devotion  to  the 
founding  of  Western  Maryland  College  and  the  local  interests  of 
the  Westminster  church,  left  a  noble  record.  As  citizen  and 
churchman  he  was  equally  respected.  Kichard  Chilcote  of  Mary- 
land deceased  March,  1892,  in  his  eighty-eighth  year,  an  original 
Reformer  and  devoted  Christian.  Rev.  J.  P.  Ellis  of  Xorth 
Carolina  deceased  March  6,  1892,  in  his  seventy-second  year. 
He  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the  cause  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
and  in  Tennessee,  as  well  as  his  native  State,  and,  whether  as 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1S92 


653 


itinerant  or  local  minister,  left  his  mark.  Joseph  Armfield, 
Kernersville,  N.  C,  deceased  May  4,  1892,  in  his  ninety-second 
year.  Converted  in  1828,  he  united  with  the  first  Reform  move- 
ment, and  continued  faithful  until  death. 

The  Sixteenth  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  convened  at  Westminster,  Md.,  May  20,  1892,  at  9  a.m. 
In  the  absence  of  the  President  of  the  last  Conference  this  body 
was  called  to  order  by  the  Secretary  of  1888,  and,  after  prelimi- 
nary services,  he  read  the  following  certified  list  of  repre- 
sentatives :  — 


Ministers 
G.  K.  Brown 
J.  T.  Howell 


Alabama 


Laymen 
C.  E.  Crenshaw 


John  Merriman 


Alabama  (Colored) 


H.  B.  Cox 
J.  J.  Bond 


Arkansas 


Thomas  Aaron 


W.  G.  Veal 


Colorado  (Texas) 
Central  Texas 


Georgia 


J.  Q.  A.  Radford 
r.  H.  M.  Henderson 


G.  B.  Branan 
W.  G.  McDaniel 


A.  L.  Stinard 


H.  Stackhouse 
S.  H.  Flood 
F.  M.  Hussey 
W.  H.  Fisher 


Genesee 
Indiana 


Henry  H.  Vick 

O.  C.  Clark 
W.  W.  McCaslin 
Mrs.  M,  J.  Morgan 
W.  R.  Beard 


W.  Huddleston 


Iowa 


Mrs.  E.  A.  Murphy 
J.  W.  Murphy 


Mrs.  E.  F.  St.  John 


Kansas 


W.  S.  Hendricks 


Louisiana 

James  P.  Patton 


HISTOBT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
L.  W.  Bates 
J.  D.  Kinzer 
T.  H.  Lewis 
F.  T.  Tagg 
W.  M.  Stray er 
W.  S.  Hammond 

F.  T.  Little 
J.  T.  Murray 

E.  J.  Drinkhouse 

G.  B.  McElroy 

C.  W.  Stevenson 

J.  A.  Sartin 

J.  L.  Scarborough 

D.  C.  Coburn 
M.  L.  Jennings 
J.  A.  Thrapp 

J.  W.  Thompson 
W.  L.  Wells 
r.  A.  Brown 


A.  H.  Widney 
W.  S.  Miller 
W.  C.  Miller 


T.  B.  Appleget 
L.  D.  Stultz 

Ruel  Hanks 
J.  J.  Smith 


W.  A.  Bunch 
W.  F.  Bennett 
D.  A.  Highfill 


Mastlamd 

Laymen 
J.  W.  Hering 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
Daniel  Baker 
J.  D.  Grant 
W.  C.  Coulbourn 
Joshua  Miles 
Samuel  Vannort 
S.  S.  Ewell 


Michigan 

A.  A.  Rast 
Roscoe  Swift 

Missouri 

J.  F.  Howe 

Mississippi 

N.  W.  Davis 

Muskingum 

Vincent  Ferguson 
J.  B.  McLucas 
T.  J.  Barnes 
C.  J.  Yingling 
M.  Yingling 


North  Illinois 

W.  S.  Wilson 
North  Missouri 


Nebraska 


New  Jersey 

J.  F.  Fulton 


New  York 

Theo.  Cocheu 


North  Carolina 

W.  C.  Whitaker 
R.  T.  Pickens 
J.  M.  Hadley 


ROSTEE  OF  REPEESENTAT1VE8 


North  Carolina  {continued) 


Ministers 
C.  L.  Wilitaker 
J.  R.  Ball 
C.  A.  Cecil 


T.  B.  Graham 
D.  S.  Stephens 
A.  M.  Ravenscroft 
J.  F.  Henkle 


W.  H.  Bentley 

O.  V.  W.  Chandler 

Samuel  McClain 

John  Scott 
G.  G.  Westfall 

A.  W.  Robertson 
J.  F.  Dyer 

J.  G.  Reed 

B.  F.  Duggan 
J.  L.  Garrison 
E.  M.  Lockwood 

L.  Dodds 


Oliver  Lowther 
Benj.  Stout 
D.  G.  Helmick 
A.  L,  McKeever 
J.  M.  Conaway 
D.  C.  Wees 
R.  C.  Dean 
J.  F.  Cowan 


Ohio 


Onondaga 


Oregon 


Pennsylvania 


Laymen 
W.  C.  Hammer 
G.  S.  Wills 
G.  B.  Harris 
J.  L.  Ogburn 

S.  P.  Weaver 
Henry  Buaghn 
S.  C.  Gressley 
C.  W.  Henkle 


G.  W.  Crandell 


Pittsburgh 


E.  T.  Molyneaux 


W.  K.  Gillespie 
W.  H.  Myers 
G.  W.  Pogue 
Dennis  Smith 


South  Illinois 
Tennessee 

Texas 
Virginia 


D.  P.  Hollon 


West  Michigan 


Thomas  McKee 


West  Virginia 


C.  H.  Smoot 
W.  A.  Strieker 
U.  S.  Fleming 
Porter  Maxwell 
Miss  M.  M.  Bonnett 
J.  W.  Hull 


656 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


The  following  were  elected,  but  not  certified  or  present  with 
certificates : — 

Baltimore  (Colored) 
3Iinisters  Laymen 
W.  H.  Holland  Perry  Gray 

Charleston,  S.  C.  (Colored) 
E.  R.  Washington 


T.  J.  Lyle 


Florida 


J.  J.  Fielding 


Fort  Siiith 

W.  S.  Bartholomew  Wm.  Irvm 


J.  T.  Robinson 


Georgia  (Colored) 

Jas.  S.  Smith 


Indian  Mission 


W.  V.  Tunstall 
P.  G.  Pyree 
Austin  Lent 


Kentucky 


Minnt:sota 


J.  C.  Hart 


D.  M.  Dillon 


T.  N.  Miller 


John  Stone 


North  Mississippi 

H.  R.  Green 


C.  :Mc Smith 


South  Carolina 

Daniel  Yarborou;;h 


The  attendance  was  large  and  the  personnel  one  of  the  most 
creditable  that  had  ever  represented  the  Church.  On  motion  of 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany,  E.  J.  Drinkhouse  was  elected  President  pro  tern. 
by  unanimity.  The  special  Committee  on  Credentials  reported, 
making  a  few  changes  of  substitutes  in  the  list  as  prepared  by 
the  Secretary.  All  these  were  present  except  in  the  cases  noted 
as  not  heard  from  either  in  person  or  by  certification  of  election. 
At  the  afternoon  session  nominations  were  made  for  the  permanent 
Presidency,  a  departure  from  the  precedents  of  the  body.  J.  W. 
Hering  was  named  by  W.  J.  C.  Dulany  of  Marj'land,  L.  W.  Bates 
by  W.  M.  Strayer  of  Maryland;  T.  B.  Appleget  by  L.  D.  Stultz 
of  Xew  Jersey.  The  result  of  the  ballot  was  for  J.  W.  Hering, 
fifty;  for  L.W.Bates,  twenty-nine;  for  T.  B.  Appleget,  seven j 


THE  WOMAN  REPRESENTATIVE  QUESTION  657 

scattering,  five;  so  the  chair  pronounced  J.  W.  Hering,  M.l)., 
elected,  having  received  a  majority  of  all  the  votes  cast.  It  was 
thought  by  some  that  it  was  the  first  instance  of  a  layman  occupy- 
ing the  position;  but,  as  this  History  has  shown,  Hon.  W.  R. 
Stewart  of  Maryland  was  elected  and  presided  over  the  called 
Convention  of  December,  1827;  Hon.  P.  B.  Hopper  was  elected, 
but  declined  to  serve  in  the  Convention  of  1828;  and  Hon.  F.  H. 
Pierpont  was  elected  and  served  in  the  "Methodist"  Conven- 
tion of  1871.  Nominations  were  also  made  for  Secretary,  with 
the  result  that  on  ballot  J.  F.  Cowan  was  elected.  He  named 
U.  S.  Fleming  and  L.  D.  Stultz,  Assistants.  On  the  second  day 
twenty  Standing  Committees  were  appointed  by  the  chair,  thus 
distributing  the  business  of  the  Conference  systematically.  A 
telegram  of  fraternal  greeting,  on  motion  of  W.  M.  Strayer,  was 
sent  to  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  then  in  session  at  Omaha,  Neb.  No  response  was  ever 
received  to  it,  the  "  sifting  "  committee,  perhaps,  to  which  much 
of  its  incidental  business  was  referred,  not  regarding  it  perhaps 
of  any  moment.  As  has  been  observed,  four  women  were  enrolled 
as  members  of  the  Conference  by  the  Secretary,  following  the 
Annual  Conference  certificates  sent  him  according  to  the  law  in 
the  case.  Numerous  papers  and  reports  were  referred  to  the 
committees. 

The  Committee  on  Certificates,  J.  T.  Murray,  Chairman,  con- 
sidered the  election  of  Rev.  Mrs.  E.  F.  St.  John  and  Mrs.  E.  A. 
Murphy  and  Mrs.  M.  J.  Morgan,  and  Miss  M.  M.  Bonnett  as 
representatives;  and  majority  and  minority  reports  were  sub- 
mitted, pending  which  E.  J.  Drinkhouse  offered  a  paper  as  a 
substitute  for  both.  After  much  discussion  and  parliamentary 
manoeuvring  by  the  friends  of  the  several  measures,  the  final  re- 
sult was  summed  up  by  the  adoption  of  the  minority  report,  by 
T.  B.  Appleget  (see  printed  Minutes,  p.  113),  by  an  aye  and  nay 
vote,  and  by  "orders,"  which  is  also  given  in  full  in  the  Confer- 
ence Minutes.  It  stood  as  follows:  ministers,  aye  forty -two; 
laymen,  aye  thirty-three;  ministers,  nay  twenty-eight;  laymen, 
nay  twenty.  It  admitted  the  women  to  their  seats,  and  pro- 
posed to  amend  the  Constitution  by  overture  to  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences as  follows:  Amend  Article  XII.  by  adding,  "and 
provided  that  no  Annual  Conference  shall  elect  a  woman  to  the 
office  of  elder  " ;  and  amend  Article  XII.  by  adding,  "  and  pro- 
vided that  no  Annual  Conference  shall  elect  a  woman  as  repre- 
sentative to  the  General  Conference."    The  substitute  as  offered 

VOL.  II  —  2u 


658 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


for  both  the  reports  provided  for  the  recognition  of  the  women 
as  representatives,  inasmuch  as  they  were  already  seated,  and  of 
overture  to  the  Annual  Conferences  to  construe  Articles  X.  and 
XII.  as  to  the  eligibility  of  women  as  representatives,  and  if  a 
constitutional  number  of  Conferences  shall  vote  that  they  are 
eligible,  then  to  amend  Article  XII.  accordingly.  The  method 
was  direct  and  affirmative,  and  left  the  ordination  of  women  still 
an  open  question.  A  call  for  the  previous  question  had  barred 
out  its  reintroduction.  The  majority  report  declared  that  both 
the  questions  had  already  been  decided  by  the  General  Confer- 
ences of  1884  and  1888,  and  pronounced  against  the  legality  of 
ordination  by  Annual  Conferences  of  women,  and  their  eligibility 
to  seats  in  either  General  or  Annual  Conferences;  and  unseated 
those  in  attendance. 

On  the  seventh  day  a  telegram  of  greeting  was  sent  to  the 
Cumberland  Presbyterian  Assembly,  then  in  session  at  Nashville, 
Tenn.  It  came  too  late,  but  was  officially  acknowledged  by  the 
Secretary.  The  mass  of  business  submitted  will  be  covered  in 
its  salient  features  under  a  review  of  reports.  The  election 
of  Editors,  Publishers,  and  General  Agents  was  had,  with  the 
following  result :  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  For- 
eign Missions,  T.  E.  Coulbourn  of  Maryland;  Corresponding 
Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions,  Benjamin  Stout  of 
West  Virginia.  W.  K.  Gillespie  was  elected  President  of  the 
Board  of  Publication,  and  Horace  Burrough,  Secretary.  E.  J. 
Drinkhouse  announced  that  he  was  not  a  candidate  for  the  editor- 
ship of  the  Methodist  Protestant,  having  served  for  eighteen  con- 
secutive years,  and  his  purpose  to  devote  his  time  to  preparation 
of  a  history  of  the  Church.  Nominations  were  made,  and  on 
counting  the  ballots,  F.  T.  Tagg  was  elected  by  a  vote  of  ninety- 
six  to  twenty  scattering.  The  Secretary,  by  order,  cast  the 
ballot  for  D.  S.  Stephens  as  Editor  of  the  Methodist  Recorder,  and 
for  J.  F.  Cowan  as  Editor  of  the  Sunday-school  periodicals,  and 
for  W.  J.  C.  Dulany  as  Publishing  Agent  at  Baltimore.  Wil- 
liam McCrackin,  Jr.,  having  declined  nomination  for  the  Pub- 
lishing Agency  at  Pittsburgh,  nominations  were  made,  and  the 
ballot  elected  U.  S.  Fleming.  The  Secretary,  by  order,  cast  the 
ballot  for  J.  C.  Berrien  as  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board 
of  Ministerial  Education.  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  was  selected  as 
the  place  for  the  next  General  Conference.  The  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Articles  of  Faith  was  recommitted,  with  instruc- 
tions to  report  to  the  next  General  Conference.    Fraternal  dele- 


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BOOK  CONCERNS — COLLEGES  —  MISSIONS  059 


gates  were  elected  to  the  United  Brethren  Church,  the  Cumberland 
Presbyterian,  and  the  rrimitive  Methodists  of  America.  After 
a  pertinent  address  from  the  President,  the  Conference  adjourned 
on  the  tenth  day. 

The  reports  show  that  the  "Young  People's  Society  of  Chris- 
tian Endeavor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church "  was  recog- 
nized, and  Ou7'  Young  People  made  its  official  organ.  The  total  of 
societies  organized  was  419,  with  a  membership  of  10,956.  J.  F, 
Cowan  was  authorized  to  give  as  much  attention  to  these  societies 
as  his  other  duties  warranted.  The  Committee  on  Foreign  Mis- 
sions report  that  $52,028.94  had  been  collected  from  all  sources 
during  the  quadrennium,  and  disbursed  for  that  work,  except 
$2257.90,  balance  on  hand.  The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  report  19  branches,  200  auxiliaries,  45  mission  bands, 
and  2800  members.  The  Missionary  Record  has  a  circulation  of 
1400,  and  no  indebtedness.  They  have  two  schools,  one  at  Yoko- 
hama and  one  at  Nagoya,  Japan.  The  receipts  for  the  quadren- 
nium amount  to  something  over  $20,000.  A  plan  for  the 
organization  of  an  Annual  Conference  in  Japan  was  submitted, 
approved,  and  afterward  carried  into  effect.  The  Board  of  Minis- 
terial Education  report  $10,300.21,  total  receipts  for  the  quad- 
rennium, and  disbursed,  except  $253.81,  balance  on  hand.  The 
permanent  fund  amounted  to  $5479.15  and  $1500  of  mortuary 
notes.  The  reports  of  the  publishing  houses  are  in  detail.  At 
Pittsburgh,  increased  net  assets  over  the  last  quadrennium, 
$21,790.45,  of  which  $20,928.36  is  increased  estimated  value  of 
the  realty  in  publishing  house.  Circulation  of  the  Methodist 
Recorder,  March,  1888,  5829 ;  present  circulation,  5390.  The  six 
forms  of  the  Sunday-school  literature  show  an  average  yearly 
number  printed  of  129,300.  Paid  subscribers  not  given.  At 
Baltimore  the  net  assets  are  $7674.31,  an  increase  of  $3304.93  over 
the  last  quadrennium.  Circulation  of  the  Methodist  Protestant, 
4013  for  the  past  year,  an  increase  of  478  over  the  last  quad- 
rennium. Paid  subscribers  to  the  Sunday-school  literature  for 
the  year,  28,360.  The  Committee  on  Education  submitted  reports 
from  Adrian  and  Western  Maryland  colleges,  Westminster  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  Yadkin  College,  Gittings  Seminary,  and  a 
prospectus  for  Kansas  City  University.  The  Committee  on 
Home  Missions  report  the  whole  amount  raised  by  the  Board  for 
the  quadrennium,  $19,697.48,  of  which  $1148.72  is  a  permanent 
fund.  Fifteen  members  were  named  to  be  Incorporators  of  the 
General  Conference  of  the  Church.    The  statistical  tables  are 


660 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


unusually  full,  and  cover  in  separate  tables  not  numbers  only  but 
Finances,  Sunday  schools  and  Young  People's  Societies,  and 
may  be  found  in  the  printed  minutes.  As  heretofore,  the  numeri- 
cal table  is  given  (on  opposite  page)  as  corrected  from  other  tabu- 
lations believed  to  be  more  accurate.  These  show  a  net  gain  for 
the  quadrennium  of  about  21,281,  members  and  ministers,  or 
about  twelve  per  cent  for  the  period,  being  the  same  for  that 
of  1888. 

In  1888,  the  bishops  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in 
their  address,  asked  the  question:  "Have  we  a  Constitution? 
And  if  so,  where  and  what  is  it?"  It  was  more  than  a  hundred 
years  after  the  organization  in  1784,  and  raised  what  was  always 
a  moot ;  but  now  that  the  heads  of  authority  seem  uncertain  about 
the  foundations  of  the  great  ecclesiasticism,  the  brethren  took  the 
cue  and  appointed  a  most  competent  committee  in  the  interval 
of  the  General  Conference  to  decide  the  question.  They  reported 
at  this  General  Conference  of  ]May,  1892,  but  it  settled  nothing 
and  was  most  unsatisfactory  to  the  body.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise? Finally  a  motion  prevailed  that  left  the  matter  substan- 
tially where  it  was,  so  that  the  query  abides  with  them :  Have 
we  a  Constitution?  The  bishops,  in  their  address  in  1892,  stirred 
the  whole  Church  by  the  announcement  that  the  statistics  would 
probably  show  a  gain  of  twenty-five  per  cent  in  membership,  or 
from  2,000,000  to  2,500,000  for  the  quadrennium.  They  were 
indeed  to  be  congratulated,  and  if  the  actual  enumeration  did  not 
fully  sustain  it,  the  growth  was  phenomenal,  and  the  Christian 
world  could  unite  in  gratulations.  A  similar  increase  had  been 
reported  relatively  in  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  at  their  1890  meeting. 

Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  shortly  after  the  rise  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence, uniting  in  the  official  papers'  discussion  of  a  Union  with 
the  Primitive  Methodists  of  America,  made  the  insistence  that 
they  should  inaugurate  it,  if  they  desired  itj  that  self-respect 
required  that  in  any  movement  of  the  kind  the  initiation  should 
not  come  from  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church, —  a  sensible 
view  of  the  situation.  (See  Baltimore  paper  for  June  8,  1892.) 
About  this  time  Dr.  Townsend  of  Boston  University,  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  issued  a  work,  "  Clerical  Politics  in  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,"  which  made  a  great  sensation,  and  with 
it  he  proposed,  in  order  to  correct  the  abuses  pointed  out,  to 
organize  within  every  Conference  "The  Keform  League  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church."    It  was  akin  to  the  "Union 


STATISTICS  OF  1892 
Statistical  Table  —  Numerical 


661 


Annual  Conferences 

Itinerant 
Ministers 

Unstationed 
Ministers  and 
Preachers 

Members 

Probationers 

Churches 

Parsonages 

Valuation 
of  Church 
Property 

25 

41 

4,272 

139 

86 

4 

$68,355.00 

Alabama,  Colored  .    .  . 

8 

480 

4 

6 

830.00 

34, 

57 

5,310 

825 

4 

23,000.00 

Arkansas,  Colored  .    .  . 

.... 

Baltimore,  Colored  .    .  . 

16 

10 

238 

7 

Central  Texas  .... 

55 

51 

2,682 

is 

1 

14*920.00 

Colorado,  Texas  .... 

44 

1^255 

144 

4 

6 

3,508.20 

Colorado,  Texas,  Colored 

21 

11 

567 

17 

10 

2 

1,980.00 

Charleston,  Colored     .  . 

12 

16 

1,250 

140 

17 

10 

265 

84 

11 

*  2,500.00 

34 

14 

1  245 

10 

9 

2,470,00 

Genesee  ....... 

15 

g 

'7I8 

15 

135 

9 

40,700.00 

30 

13 

2  705 

60 

48 

23*400.00 

Georgia,  Colored .... 

28 

35 

1^078 

42 

27 

11,'990!00 

60 

70 

7  934 

144 

1145 

19 

1,462.80 

48 

22 

3^950 

64 

22 

80^900.00 

Indian  Mission  .... 

40 

5 

'700 

46 

34 

2  458 

15 

'  23 

g 

35,250.00 

15 

15 

1*968 

71 

8 

10 

g 

1  800 

30 

5  000  00 

KJ  J  \J\J\J  •  \J\J 

130 

68 

18  861 

1  434 

2565 

76 

1  O'^'i  .S30  00 

44 

69 

2  919 

7Q 

65 

97 

117  f\17  ^"i 

10 

5 

1 

32 

52 

2  740 

42 

40 

9 

29  'I'lO  00 

45 

24 

2151 

54 

61 

2 

1 1  000  00 

63 

55 

12  274 

170 

1421 

17 

3 

10 

487 

21 

7 

3 

7,900.00 

44 

3,107 

148 

37 

13 

149,750.00 

29 

"20 

2,090 

40 

26 

11 

150,520.00 

North  Carolina  .... 

42 

71 

15,002 

171 

187 

9 

132,666.00 

59 

2,219 

23 

491 

19 

82,200.00 

North  Missouri  .... 

21 

"29 

2,073 

2 

17^ 

3 

13,650.00 

North  Mississippi    .    .  . 

25 

1,059 

8 

19 

3,800.00 

63 

"48 

6,184 

319 

93 

24 

218,842.74 

48 

7 

2,116 

89 

35h 

25 

51,645.00 

Washington  and  Oregon  . 

5 

4 

191 

20 

3 

1 

66,900.00 

17 

11 

1,268 

8 

191 

5 

39,600.00 

63 

54 

7,257 

178 

85 

24 

504,289.50 

South  Carolina  .... 

15 

11 

2,000 

30 

2 

17,590.00 

14 

30 

2,881 

'  ibb 

m 

9 

40,900.00 

17 

1,743 

15,500.00 

31 

2,244 

"22 

2U 

6 

13,360.00 

18 

* '  25 

2,943 

41 

24 

15,860.00 

^Vest  Michigan  .... 

35 

20 

1,144 

66 

14 

38,175,00 

71 

103 

15,306 

186 

30 

157,825.00 

West  Arkansas  .... 

Totals  of  Methodist  Recor- 
der table,  Dec.  26,  1891, 
which  are  much  more 
satisfactory  and  reliable 
than  the  above    .    .  . 

Total  lay  and  ministerial 
membership  .... 

1,485 
1,511 

1,125 
1,073 

141,271 

156,473 
165,162 

4,120 
4,035 

2,181i 
2,070 

405 
401 

$3,551,359.29 
$3,742,398.00 

662 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Societies  "  of  1824-28,  but  no  one  ventured  to  assert  that  it  was 
illegal  or  seditious  now  as  then.  Seventy  years  had  made  right 
what  was  then  wrong.  The  change  in  the  editorship  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  took  place  with  the  issue  of  June  22,  1892. 

Eev.  George  R.  Barr,  D.D.,  was  born  in  North  Carolina,  July 
25,  1810.  Converted  in  1823,  he  united  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  but  soon  thereafter  becoming  acquainted  with 
Reform  literature,  heartily  entered  into  the  movement,  and  was 
received  into  the  Virginia  Conference  in  1842.  In  the  following 
three  years  he  organized  churches  in  four  counties  of  the  State, 
being  indefatigable  in  his  zeal  for  Christ  and  the  new  Church, 
and  with  occasional  retirements  to  the  local  ranks  remained  con- 
nected with  it  to  his  death.  Cultivated  in  intellect,  devoted  and 
steadfast,  he  shared  largely  the  confidence  of  the  Church,  and 
was  elected  a  representative  to  the  General  Conferences  of  1858, 
1870,  1874,  and  the  Conventions  of  1867  and  1877.  He  was  also 
President  of  the  Holston  Conference  for  three  years,  and  of  the 
Virginia  Conference  two  years.  He  departed  this  life  peacefully 
at  Abingdon,  Va.,  August  27,  1892.  Rev.  Zadoc  M.  Waters,  of 
Howard  County,  Md.,  local  minister,  deceased  July  19,  1892,  in 
his  ninetieth  year.  He  united  with  the  Church  from  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church  about  1830,  and  remained  constant  to 
Christ  and  the  Church  until  the  end.  John  McPherson  of 
North  Carolina,  born  March  25,  1810,  deceased  October  14,  1892, 
an  original  Reformer  from  1830.  Joshua  Murray  of  Maryland 
deceased  February  6,  1892,  aged  eighty-eight  years,  an  original 
Reformer.  Rev.  Francis  Brown,  pastor  of  the  Laurel  Street 
(colored)  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  deceased  February  12, 
1893,  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  aged  seventy-two  years.  From  his 
early  manhood  he  was  religious,  and  connected  with  the  Charles- 
ton church  from  its  organization  in  1835,  honored  and  respected 
by  the  white  and  colored  membership  alike.  Class  leader  and 
preacher,  he  was  faithful  until  the  destruction  of  the  edifice  by 
the  bombardment  of  the  city  in  1861.  After  the  Civil  War  and 
the  disintegration  of  the  white  congregation,  he  did  not  forsake 
his  Reform  principles,  but  organized  the  colored  brethren  into 
a  church,  and  as  its  messenger  he  made  frequent  visits  to  the 
Maryland  Conference,  by  which  he  was  ordained.  He  departed 
peacefully  and  merits  this  mention.  Rev.  George  Harlen,  M.D., 
a  local  minister  of  the  Church  in  Georgia,  converted  in  his  eigh- 
teenth year,  and  soon  thereafter  united  with  the  first  Reformers 
of  that  State,  and  departed  this  life  May  21,  1893,  in  his  seventy- 


RAPID  GROWTH  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 


6G3 


ninth  year.  Rev.  George  Nestor,  D.D.,  was  born  March  19,  1818, 
in  Virginia,  now  West  Virginia,  was  converted  in  1837,  and  in 
1840,  with  his  parents  and  others,  withdrew  from  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  and  formed  a  Keform  Methodist  society.  He 
was  licensed  to  preach  in  1843,  and  in  1844  united  with  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference  and  rendered  efficient  service  until  its 
division  in  1854,  when  he  cast  his  lot  with  the  newly  organized 
West  Virginia  Conference.  He  was  closely  identified  with  its 
history,  and  no  name  is  more  honored  among  them.  As  Presi- 
dent of  the  Annual  Conference  and  representative  to  General 
Conferences  and  Conventions,  he  was  well  known  by  the  general 
Church.  A  self-made  man,  his  literary  efforts,  both  in  prose  and 
poetry,  commanded  the  attention  of  his  friends.  He  departed 
this  life  July  25,  1893. 

The  year  1893  was  characterized  by  the  itinerant  ministry  in 
faithful  labor,  and  the  Annual  Conferences  as  they  assembled 
made  reports  of  increased  membership,  church  building,  and  a 
steady  purpose  to  achieve  denominational  success  in  the  Master's 
name.  Maryland,  always  a  leading  Conference,  reported  twenty- 
five  hundred  conversions  and  over  ^50,000  accretion  of  church 
property  value.  Other  Conferences  vied  with  it  in  good  work. 
The  theological  schools  at  Westminster,  Md.,  and  at  Adrian, 
Mich.,  were  sending  out  educated  young  men  to  recruit  the  ranks. 
The  Church  papers  and  the  Sunday-school  literature  preserved 
a  high  standard,  and  the  General  Agents  were  in  the  field  push- 
ing with  energy  their  respective  departments.  The  Christian 
Endeavor  movement  carried  into  it  the  young  people,  and  a 
denominational  Convention  was  held  at  Tiffin,  0.,  June  23,  1893, 
with  representatives  from  all  sections  as  delegated  by  over  five 
hundred  societies.  Eev.  Dr.  F.  T.  Tagg  presided,  in  the  absence 
of  Eev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Bates,  the  first  President,  and  the  programme 
of  addresses  and  meetings  was  successfully  carried  out.  Rev. 
H.  L.  Elderdice  was  elected  President  for  the  ensuing  year,  and 
the  work  received  a  strong  impetus.  These  societies  were  credit- 
ably represented  in  the  General  Convention  of  the  Christian 
Endeavor  Society,  at  Montreal,  Can.,  in  July,  1893,  and  the 
showing  was  impressive,  while  individual  members  on  the  pro- 
gramme made  themselves  felt  in  the  grand  demonstration,  notably 
Rev.  Dr.  T.  H.  Lewis,  President  of  Western  Maryland  College, 
Rev.  A.  H.  Reynolds  of  Ohio,  Revs.  F.  T.  Little,  H.  L.  Elderdice, 
W.  C.  Perkins,  and  Paul  M.  Stray er  of  Maryland,  and  Editor 
J.  F.  Cowan  of  Our  Young  People,  their  organ.    The  denomina- 


664  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


tion  reported  765  societies,  and  it  was  rapidly  taking  rank  as 
a  leading  church  in  the  general  organization. 

The  year  1894  had  no  specially  eventful  occurrences.  The 
outline  of  church  work  was  carried  on  by  the  quiet  itinerant 
toilers,  tilling  the  fields  and  content  with  a  record  at  Conference. 
The  Missionary  Bulletin  was  discontinued  by  the  Secretary,  as 
involving  too  much  extra  labor  in  its  monthly  issue,  and  in  the 
belief  that  the  official  papers  could  be  made  the  vehicle  of  such 
intelligence  on  a  wider  scale.  The  Cleveland,  0.,  General  Con- 
vention of  the  Christian  Endeavor  Society,  in  July,  1894,  re- 
ported the  denominational  societies  as  reaching  the  phenomenal 
number  of  963,  soon  to  cover  the  round  one  thousand.  Paul  M. 
Strayer  was  elected  President  of  the  denominational  Union.  Our 
Church  Record,  an  eight-page  small  quarto  was  issued  from 
Greensboro',  N.  C,  as  the  local  paper  of  that  Conference,  by 
Eev.  J.  F.  McCulloch.  It  has  been  well  maintained  and  a  suc- 
cessful effort  made  to  build  a  publishing  house  in  that  place  for 
its  accommodation,  at  a  cost  of  $5000.  E.  J.  Hill,  of  the  church 
in  Washington,  D.  C,  deceased,  bequeathed  to  the  Westminster 
Seminary,  Md.,  $2500,  and  to  the  Maryland  Superannuated  Fund 
Society,  $1000,  November,  1894.  Rev.  John  Thurman,  a  vener- 
able member  of  the  Georgia  Conference,  and  associated  with  it 
from  a  very  early  period,  deceased  December,  1894.  He  was 
born  November  10,  1810,  in  South  Carolina,  removed  with  his 
parents  to  Georgia,  early  connected  himself  with  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  was  licensed  to  preach  in  1835.  In  1841 
he  united  with  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  had  the 
honor  of  preaching  the  first  sermon  ever  delivered  in  the  city  of 
Atlanta,  when  just  laid  out,  and  for  fifty-three  years  continued 
in  active  or  local  relations  to  serve  the  Conference  to  the  close  of 
a  useful  life.  Hon.  Charles  W.  Button,  born  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
Va.,  July  17,  1822,  deceased  near  Lynchburg,  Va.,  December 
29,  1894,  of  pneumonia.  His  parents  were  members  of  the 
church  at  its  organization  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  the  son  imbibed 
Reform  principles  from  them  and  the  early  preachers  who  were 
visitors  at  his  father's  house.  AVhen  quite  a  youth,  by  the  death 
of  his  father  the  widowed  mother  and  a  number  of  children  fell 
to  his  care.  Manfully  realizing  the  situation,  he  raised  them 
all,  took  honorable  positions  in  the  community,  and  married 
Mary,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Daniel  Zollickoffer.  A 
loyal  churchman  and  political  leader,  writer  for  the  press,  he 
removed  to  Lynchburg,  Va.,  in  1859,  and  became  editor  and  pro- 


DR.  MATHER'S  BEQUEST  TO  KANSAS  UNIVERSITY  6G5 


prietor  of  the  Lynchburg  Virginian;  ably  and  successfully  con- 
ducted it  for  more  than  thirty  years,  during  which  period  he 
was  a  foremost  supporter  of  the  local  church,  often  a  delegate  to 
the  Virginia  and  the  Maryland  Annual  Conferences,  frequently 
a  member  of  the  General  Conferences  and  Conventions  of  the 
Church,  in  all  which  he  was  a  commanding  figure  and  able 
debater.  No  layman  was  better  known  throughout  the  entire 
connection. 

The  year  1895  was  notable  in  the  commercial  world  for  finan- 
cial depression  and  general  unrest  among  working  people,  a  con- 
dition of  things  which,  while  not  always  inimical  to  the  Christian 
Church  spiritually,  seriously  affects  its  general  enterprises,  espe- 
cially among  the  weaker  denominations.  As  the  year  closed,  it 
was  found  that  the  Church  had  materially  suffered  from  this  cause 
in  most  of  the  Conferences.  Numerically  the  reports  indicated 
a  considerable  increment  for  the  quadrennium,  swelling  the  mem- 
bership to  probably  180,000  as  against  165,000  in  1892.  The 
ministry  was  well  reenforced,  but  most  of  the  general  collections 
showed  a  decline.  Samuel  F.  Mather,  M.D.,  a  venerable  Con- 
gregational Christian  of  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  deceased  early  this 
year,  and  bequeathed  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  through 
a  board  of  incorporated  trustees  realty  in  that  city  and  its 
vicinage,  with  all  his  personalty,  minus  $8250  in  legacies,  the 
whole  being  appraised  in  round  numbers  at  about  $150,000,  on 
condition  that  the  Church  erect  a  building,  to  cost  not  less  than 
$25,000,  and  open  a  college  by  October,  1896.  The  project  had 
been  anticipated,  and  about  $35,000  subscribed  for  this  purpose. 
The  foundations  have  been  laid,  and  hope  entertained  that  the 
enterprise  will  receive  such  an  impetus  by  the  assembling  of  the 
General  Conference  in  that  city  as  to  insure  its  success.  Also 
early  in  the  year  the  Texas  College  at  Westminster,  Collins 
County,  Tex.,  was  inaugurated  by  the  purchase  from  the  Mis- 
sionary Baptists  of  a  building  and  grounds  at  an  aggregate  cost 
of  $3500.  It  will  be  under  the  Presidency  of  Rev.  J.  L.  Lawlis, 
A.M.,  an  alumnus  of  Westminster  Theological  Seminary,  and  the 
auspices  of  the  five  Texas  Conferences.  An  Old  People's  Home 
had  been  projected  at  the  suggestion  of  J.  D.  Cathell  of  George- 
town, D.  C,  for  Maryland,  and  the  project  ripened  into  the 
purchase  of  a  suitable  house  and  grounds  at  Westminster,  Md., 
and  funds  subscribed  for  payment  and  the  opening  of  the  Home 
at  an  early  date.  It  will  be  under  the  patronage  and  control  of 
the  Maryland  Conference.    The  denominational  Young  People's 


666 


HISTOBT  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Society  of  Christian  Endeavor  held  its  annual  meeting  at  Pitts- 
burgh, Va.,  June  28,  1895,  Paul  M.  Strayer,  President,  and  had 
an  excellent  programme,  which  was  successfully  carried  out.  It 
was  a  stimulating  meeting  to  all  who  attended  it,  and  they 
brought  home  with  them  a  diffusive  zeal  in  the  cause  of  the 
Master.    Paul  M.  Strayer  was  reelected  President. 

The  Wesleyan  Methodists  of  England  were  confronted  at  their 
last  Annual  Conference  with  a  woman  delegate  from  one  of  the 
circuits,  bearing  credentials  for  the  position.  She  was  allowed 
to  retain  her  seat,  but  the  Conference  found  themselves  in  a 
quandary,  so  that  final  action  is  yet  to  be  taken  on  a  question 
which  is  challenging  consideration,  not  among  Methodists  only, 
but  the  Christian  world.  In  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  the 
usual  quadrennial  agitation  among  the  laity  for  recognition  took 
place.  In  Philadelphia  a  vast  meeting  was  held  in  the  Broad 
and  Arch  Street  church,  presided  over  by  Ex-Governor  Pattison, 
and  attended  by  all  the  leading  laymen  of  their  many  churches, 
and  a  series  of  resolutions  passed  which  had  a  ring  of  solid  and 
solemn  purpose  in  them,  not  to  be  misunderstood,  for  full  repre- 
sentation in  the  General  and  Annual  Conferences.  A  like  meet- 
ing was  held  in  Cincinnati,  while  in  Baltimore,  the  cradle  of  the 
^'Radical"  controversy  of  1827-30,  a  meeting  was  held  in  the 
old  Eutaw  Street  church,  June,  1895,  at  which  over  three  hun- 
dred delegates  assembled,  from  sixty-one  of  their  city  stations, 
almost  the  entire  number.  Their  deliberations  were  characterized 
with  careful  consideration  of  the  resolutions,  passed  by  a  unani- 
mous vote,  demanding  representation  in  the  Annual  Conferences, 
etc.  Simultaneously  in  the  Baltimore  Conference  a  paper  was 
introduced  and  referred  to  a  committee  to  report  in  1896,  calling 
for  lay-delegation  in  the  Annual  Conferences,  the  election  of 
Presiding  Elders  by  the  Conference,  and  the  limitation  of  the 
Episcopal  prerogative  of  appointments  by  the  cabinet  of  elders. 
After  a  hundred  years  of  consolidation  on  an  erroneous  founda- 
tion of  ministerial  exclusive  rule,  this  vast  organization  now  finds 
itself  confronted  on  every  side  with  a  growing  and  irresistible 
protest  against  that  original  error  made  in  1784,  and  confirmed  in 
1808,  when  the  delegated  General  Conference  was  instituted  with- 
out the  slightest  recognition  of  the  membership  as  competent  to 
participate  in  the  law-making  department  or  the  administration  of 
the  Church.  Practical  difficulties  of  the  most  stupendous  nature 
have  grown  with  this  system,  so  that  it  is  a  herculean  task  to 
meet  and  properly  settle  these  demands. 


ERROBS  OF  1784  DEMAND  CORRECTION  667 


The  fundamental  contention  of  this  "History  of  Methodist 
Reform  "  is,  that  grave  errors  were  committed  by  Wesley  and  Coke 
in  the  Poll-Deed  of  the  British  Conference,  by  which  exclusive 
power  was  entailed  forever  in  one  hundred  designated  ministers 
as  a  close  and  self-perpetuating  corporation,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  wisdom  of  Wesley's  personal  government  prior  to 
that  time  as  best  in  the  circumstances ;  and  also  by  Asbury  and 
Coke  when  the  same  entailment  of  power  occurred  at  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Christmas  Conference  of  1784,  and  reaffirmed  at  the 
creation  of  the  delegated  General  Conference  in  1808, —  a  lost 
opportunity  for  correction,  —  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the 
wisdom  of  Asbury 's  personal  government  prior  to  1784,  as  best 
for  the  American  societies  in  the  circumstances.  Now  an  equal 
representation  in  either  the  General  or  the  Annual  Conferences 
doubles  the  personnel  of  bodies  already  overgrown  and  unwieldy 
in  most  cases,  and  is  a  most  serious  problem  for  solution,  as  well 
as  a  deterrent  to  conservative  men  who  otherwise  need  no  argu- 
ment as  to  the  equity  of  such  a  proceeding.  It  must,  however, 
be  met,  while  the  responsibility  of  friction  and  redivision  rests 
with  the  "fathers,"  who  were  obstinately  blind  to  the  warnings 
given  them  in  1824-30.  So  grave,  indeed,  are  the  difficulties, 
and  so  utterly  antipodal  the  systems  in  their  very  genius,  that 
even  these  concessions  made  and  the  readjustments  effected  would 
not  be  satisfactory  to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  after 
nearly  seventy  years  of  Presbyterial  method  and  a  demonstration 
of  its  ecclesiastical  right  to  a  separate  continued  existence,  wish- 
ing nothing  but  federation  with  its  sister  Methodism s  and  dis- 
missing as  a  finality  organic  union.  In  England  the  difficulties 
were  not  so  grave.  After  a  hundred  years  of  protest  by  an  en- 
thralled laity,  and  numerous  excisions  and  secessions  and  multi- 
plied branches  in  consequence,  the  parent  body  developed  wisdom 
enough  less  than  a  score  of  years  ago  to  admit  the  laity  to  an 
equality  as  to  numbers,  and  are  seeking  by  parliamentary  amend- 
ment to  the  Poll-Deed  to  correct  its  original  defects. 

Rev.  N.  Urquhart  of  the  Alabama  Conference  deceased  Feb- 
ruary 12,  1895,  at  Ramer,  Ala.  He  came  from  Georgia  in  1828, 
entered  the  ministry  in  1833,  and  was  a  devoted  itinerant  for 
forty-eight  years.  Martin  Post  of  West  Virginia  deceased 
August  20,  1895,  in  his  eighty-fifth  year,  after  a  connection  with 
the  Church  of  over  sixty  years,  an  original  Reformer  of  that 
section.  Rev.  E.  A.  Wheat,  D.D.,  born  October  20,  1818,  in  New 
York,  entered  the  ministry  of  the  Church  in  his  teens,  elected  to 


GG8  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 

General  Conferences  and  often  to  tlie  Presidency  of  the  Genesee 
Annual  Conference,  in  which  he  was  a  father  for  half  a  century; 
a  frequent  contributor  to  the  official  papers;  a  man  of  sound 
judgment,  thrifty,  prudent,  and  generous  for  his  day;  a  loyal 
churchman  and  devoted  Christian  minister  —  he  passed  to  the 
better  life  April  14,  1895.  Rev.  James  G.  Seaman  born  July  29, 
1802,  and  departed  this  life  June  11,  1895.  Converted  at  fifteen 
years  of  age,  he  united  with  a  class  of  the  "  Reformed  Metho- 
dists "  in  Jersey  City  in  1824.  He  was  a  delegate  elect  to  the 
Baltimore  Convention  of  1828.  On  the  union  of  the  Reformed 
Methodists  with  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  1832,  he 
was  relicensed  to  preach,  afterward  ordained,  and  for  thirty-two 
years  was  an  itinerant  within  the  bounds  of  the  Onondaga  Con- 
ference. Removing  to  Michigan  in  1867,  he  united  with  the 
Conference  and  was  in  the  active  ministry  until  his  superannua- 
tion about  1883.  He  survived  to  his  ninety-third  year,  when  he 
passed  away  in  peace,  and  merits  this  record  as  a  consistent 
Christian  and  intrepid  Reformer.  Rev.  James  K.  Nichols,  D.D., 
born  July  18,  1817,  was  converted  and  united  with  the  Church 
at  sixteen  years  of  age,  was  received  into  the  Maryland  Annual 
Conference  in  1836,  and  faithfully  itinerated  for  twenty-seven 
years,  when  he  was  elected  its  President  in  1863.  In  1871  he 
was  called  to  the  Vice-Presidency  of  Western  Maryland  College, 
and  was  often  elected  to  the  General  Conference.  A  self-made 
man  of  fine  literary  taste,  and  a  fluent  writer  of  both  prose  and 
verse,  a  true  friend  and  wise  counsellor,  he  commanded  the  love 
and  admiration  of  all  who  knew  him,  and  after  some  years  of 
superannuation  departed  this  life,  May  5,  1895.  Rev.  Daniel  W. 
Bates,  D.D.,  was  born  in  New  Jersey,  June  10,  1815.  His  parents 
were  original  Reformers;  and  his  grand-uncle  was  Daniel  Bates 
often  mentioned  by  Asbury  in  his  Journal  as  furnishing  hospitality 
to  him.  After  a  local  relation  of  some  time  he  united  with  the 
Maryland  Conference  in  1843,  and  continued  to  itinerate  and 
render  active  and  fruitful  service  until  late  in  life.  He  was 
elected  President  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  and  also  to  the 
General  Conference.  A  practical  preacher  and  a  fertile  writer, 
he  became  well  known  throughout  the  Church.  He  closed  his 
earthly  career  of  usefulness,  continuing  to  preach  occasionally 
until  near  his  eighty-first  year,  November  9,  1895.  His  last 
illness  found  him  prepared  in  the  testimony :  "  I  am  simply  wait- 
ing the  Lord's  call,  and  it  makes  but  little  difference  to  me  how 
soon  it  comes.    I  am  ready."    After  suitable  obsequies  his 


GERMAN  WORK  IN  NEW  CUURCU 


669 


remains  were  deposited  in  Wesley  cliapel  cemetery,  near  his  late 
home.  E-ev.  A.  H.  Triimbo,  D.D.,  departed  this  life  at  Spring- 
field, 0.,  February  21,  1896.  He  was  born  January  2,  1814,  and, 
though  not  an  original  Reformer,  he  was  early  identified  with 
the  Ohio  Conference,  and  soon  gave  evidence  of  his  superior 
mental  gifts  and  consecration  to  Eeform  principles  and  the  cause 
of  Christ.  He  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  periodical  press 
of  the  Church,  logical  force  and  perspicuity  of  statement  charac- 
terizing his  productions.  For  a  number  of  years  he  was  out  of 
the  active  itinerancy,  but  always  alive  to  every  interest  of  the 
Church.  His  end  was  peace,  and  he  left  out  of  a  limited  property 
bequests  to  the  colleges  and  other  institutions.  Kev.  Thomas  E. 
Coulbourn  departed  this  life  March  11,  1806,  at  Pittston,  Pa.,  in 
the  forty-third  year  of  his  age.  The  announcement  was  a  great 
shock  to  the  general  Church.  At  the  General  Conference  of  1892, 
he  was  elected  Corresponding  Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions.  After  prayerful  consideration  he  entered  upon  its 
duties,  and  for  nearly  the  quadrennial  term  exhibited  a  mastery 
of  the  situation  which  gave  universal  satisfaction.  An  intelli- 
gent consecration  marked  every  step  of  his  labors.  He  was  sud- 
denly stricken  down  in  pursuit  of  his  mission,  at  the  home  of 
Kev.  E.  S.  Hulshart,  with  acute  peritonitis,  and  in  less  than  four 
days  he  expired.  Informed  of  his  perilous  condition,  he  met  the 
last  enemy  with  calmness  and  resignation  —  a  legacy  of  triumph 
to  his  family  and  friends.  His  remains  were  removed  to  Lynch- 
burg, Va.,  near  which  place  he  resided,  and  after  impressive 
services  were  laid  to  rest  in  the  family  lot  of  his  father-in-law, 
the  late  Hon.  C.  W.  Button.  In  due  season  the  Board  of  Mis- 
sions elected  Rev.  A.  D.  Melvin  of  the  Maryland  Conference  to 
fill  out  his  unexpired  term,  and  he  at  once  entered  upon  his 
duties. 

A  fitting  close  to  this  chapter  calls  for  the  mention  of  the  work 
of  Rev.  S.  Heininger  of  Elkhart,  Ind.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
polity  of  the  Evangelical  Association,  which  had  just  divided 
through  causes  excited  by  the  power  of  their  bishopric,  he  came 
to  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  bringing  with  him  the 
German  congregation  he  had  been  serving.  He  was  soon  made 
superintendent  of  the  German  work  by  the  Board  of  Home  Exten- 
sion, and  he  continues  to  fill  the  position  with  zeal  and  satis- 
faction. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 


Seventeenth  General  Conference  at  Kansas  City,  Kan,,  May  15,  1896  — Roster  of 
members ;  reelection  of  Dr.  Heriug  as  President  without  precedent ;  personal 
indorsement  —  Banquet  to  the  Conference  by  H.  J.  Heinz,  Esq.  —  Corner-stone 
laying  of  Kansas  City  University  —  Large  percentage  of  absentees  from  the 
Conference  owing  to  extreme  Western  location  —  Election  of  General  Confer- 
ence officers  of  Church  papers  and  official  boards  —  Fraternal  messengers  and 
letters — Articles  of  Religion  left  unchanged,  and  committee  discharged  — 
Great  increase  in  Y.  P.  C.  E.  Societies  —  Incorporation  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence—  Financial  exhibit  of  the  several  boards  and  publishing  houses — Over- 
tures to  the  Annual  Conferences —  Statistics  of  the  Church  show  a  gain  of  nearly 
twenty-seven  per  cent  for  members  and  nearly  twenty-five  for  Church  prop- 
erty;  a  remarkable  showing  —  Opening  of  Kansas  University  under  Chancellor 
Stephens;  a  ten-thousand  dollar  donation  to  it  by  H.  J.  Heinz  —  Dr.  Mather's 
bequest  to  the  University;  present  valuation  S150,000;  prospective  not  less 
than        ,000  —  Obituaries  for  1890  — Result  of  overtures  to  the  Conferences. 

The  seventeenth  General  Conference  assembled  at  Kansas 
City,  Kan.,  May  15,  1896,  in  the  People's  Methodist  Protestant 
church.  The  President,  Dr.  J.  W.  Hering,  after  preliminary 
religious  services,  read  a  report  and  made  sundry  recommenda- 
tions. It  was  a  departure  from  the  methods  of  the  Conference, 
and  universally  approved  as  dignifying  the  office  and  imparting 
important  information  to  the  body  at  the  outset.  The  roll  of 
certificates  of  election  was  read  by  the  Secretary,  and  the  follow- 
ing, subsequently  amended,  made  up  the  roster :  — 


Alabama 


Ministers 
J.  T.  Howell 
C.  B.  McDaniel 
J.  P.  Morgan  i 


Ira  Champion  i 
O.  F.  Warner 
Joseph  Bell 


Laymen 


Arkansas 


J,  E.  Loudermilk 
J.  F.  Nisbit 
M.  C.  Jackson 


A.  G.  Gray 
J.  C.  Milner 
E.  M.  Allen 


Central  Texas 


A.  S.  Biddison 


C.  Byrd 


1  Alternates. 
670 


GO 


o 


1:3 


GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1896 


Ministers 
J.  S.  Perry 


J.  L.  Jackson 


W.  S.  Bartholomew 
O.  P.  Wildey 

F.  H.  M.  Henderson 
R.  S.  McGarity 

James  Kirkwood 
W.  A.  McCorkle 

W.  V.  Tunstall 


H.  Stackhouse 
S.  Heininger 
J.  P.  Ledbetter 
S.  S.  Stanton 


Eugenia  F.  St.  John 
T.  J.  Sheppard 


J.  D.  Kinzer 
F.  T.  Tagg 
T.  H.  Lewis 
J.  T.  Murray  i 
F.  T.  Little 
W.  M.  Strayer 
A.  D.  Melvin 
S.  B.  Tredway 
L.  \V.  Bates 
J.  L.  Mills 
W.M.  Poisali 


Colorado  (Texas) 

Laymen 
T.  J.  Ham  mack 

Colorado  (Texas  Colored) 

J.  W.  Larrimore 

Fort  Smith  Mission 

W.  C.  Philips 


Genesee 
Georgia 

Iowa 
Indian  Mission 


Ira  McMichael 


J.  J.  Barge 
C.  O.  Stubbs 


John  F.  Burdine 
Miles  Pearson 


Indiana 


Kansas 


Maryland 


A.  C.  Fuller 
R.  Rutledge  i 


Michigan 


1  Alternates 


King  Cacey 

L.  Boring 
John  Lowden 
Mrs.  M.  A.  Omo^ 
W.  W.  Lineberry 

J.  E.  Devilbiss 
Mrs.  J.  E.  Rouse 


J.  W.  Hering 
Daniel  Baker 
J.  R.  Caton 
T-  H.  Bartlett 
S.  Vannort 
J.  A.  Smith 
J.  G.  Coleman 
T,  A.  Murray 
W.  J.  C.  Dulany 
C.  W.  Hobbs 
C.  A.  Benjamin 

A.  A.  Rust 
O.  L.  Palmer 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Ministers 
J.  A.  Sartin 
C.  F.  Barnes 

J.  L.  Scarborough 


J.  A.  Thrapp 
S.  A.  Fisher 
W.  L.  Wells 
M.  L.  Jennings 
G.  E.  McManiman 
D.  C.  Coburn 
W.  S.  Cairns 


R.  E.  Fox 

J.  A.  Reichard 


Missouri 


Mississippi 
Muskingum 


North  Illinois 


Laymen 
J.  F.  Howe 
F.  A.  Jones 

J.  B.  Allen 


Boyd  McConnick  ^ 
M.  Tingling 
Theo.  Purvis  1 
W.  L.  Trenner 
V.  Ferguson 
A.  M.  Lyons 
C.  Y.  Tingling 


W.  S.  Wilson 
R.  M.  Pollock  1 


W.  S.  Miller 


A.  J.  Richardson 
R.  C.  Jeter 


North  Missouri 

J.  W.  Root 

North  Mississippi 

W.  C.  Carter 


T.  J.  Strickler 


Nebraska 


J.  S.  Francis 


W.  D.  Stultz 
John  H.  Algori 


J.  H.  Robinson 


W,  A.  Bunch 
T.  J.  Ogburn 
J.  F.  McCuUoch 
C.  A.  Cecil 
L.  L.  Albright 
W.  E.  Swain 
T.  M.  Johnson 
A.  W.  Lineberry 
J.  F.  Dozieri 


New  Jersey 


New  York 


E.  S.  Vanleer 
Z.  Patterson 


Fred  H.  Varney 


North  Carolina 

O.  R.  Cox 
R.  T.  Pickens 
F.  R.  Harris 
A.  M.  Rankin 
J.  M.  Had  ley 
W.  P.  Pickett 
J.  C.  Roberts 
J.  N.  Wills 
J.  L.  Ogburn 

1  Alternates. 


BOSTER  OF  BEPBESENTATIVES 


Oregon  Mission 


Ministers 
B.  B.  Paul 


D.  S.  Stephens 
T.  B.  Graham 
W.  J.  Elliot 
J.  F.  Henkle 


M.  L.  Baker 


G.  C.  Sheppard 
A.  W.  Robertson 
Geo.  Shaffer 
T.  H.  Colhouer 
W.  H.  Gladden 


J.  R.  Botts 

C.  McSmith 

J.  G.  Reedi 
J.  S.  Tisdale 

A.  J.  Steward 

M.  C.  Wilson 

S.  0.  Hooper 

J.  D.  Christian 
T.  L.  Garrison  1 

H.  M.  Peebles 


Laymen 


Ohio 


Onondaga 


Pittsburgh 


C.  E.  Custis 
W.  L.  Bailey 
J.  K.  Vannorsdall 
A.  J.  Vanpelt 

C.  W.  Waterman 


J.  F.  Cooper 
H.  M.  Myers 
G.  B.  Brown 
T.  B.  Evans 
J.  W.  Morris 


Pennsylvania 


J.  R.  Hay 


South  Carolina 


D.  Yarborough 


South  Illinois 


M.  S.  Strike 
South  Georgia  (Colored) 

St.  Louis  Mission 

H.  S.  Morris 

Southwest  Texas  Mission 

J.  M.  Low 


Tennessee 


Texas 


Virginia 


W.  R.  Sims 


J.  K.  Pierce 
T.  P.  Stillwell 


I.  P.  Robinet 


West  Michigan 


W.  D.  Tompkinson 

VOL.  II  —  2  X 


1  Alternates. 


J.  W.  Burlington 


674 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


West  Virginia 


Ministers 


Laymen 
Porter  Maxwell 
A.  G.  Hall 
U.  S.  Fleming 


M.  I).  Helmick 


E.  J.  Wilson 
J.  A.  Selby 
B.  Stout 


John  Lynn 
C.  II.  Smoot 


M.  L.  Smith 
M.  M.  Everly 
J,  J.  Mason 


G.  W.  Ilolswade 
J.  W.  Hull 


J.  F.  Cowan 

The  Secretary  notes  in  the  printed  Minutes  that  those  desig- 
nated were  alternates,  but  gives  no  indication  of  the  absentees; 
but,  as  the  roster  of  those  elected  shows  188,  and  on  the  ballot 
for  permanent  officers,  on  the  second  day,  Dr.  J.  W.  Hering  was 
reelected  by  a  vote  of  75  out  of  112  cast,  the  highest  ballot  at 
any  time  being  132,  the  presumption  is  that  those  absent  made 
a  heavy  percentage,  accounted  for  by  the  fact  of  the  extreme 
Western  location  of  the  Conference.  The  personnel  of  the  body, 
however,  was  impressive.  The  reelection  of  Dr.  Hering  was  the 
first  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  and  a  high  compliment  to  his 
administration.  Rev.  T.  M.  Johnson  of  Korth  Carolina  was 
elected  Secretary.  Twenty  Standing  Committees  were  appointed 
by  the  chair,  thoroughly  distributing  the  Conference  work. 

Early  in  the  session  a  banquet  was  tendered  the  Conference  by 
H.  J.  Heinz,  Esq.,  of  Pittsburgh,  which  was  accepted  for  the 
following  Monday  evening  at  the  principal  hotel  of  Kansas  City, 
Mo.,  and  proved  a  most  enjoyable  entertainment.  The  Confer- 
ence also  accepted  an  invitation  to  the  corner-stone  laying  of 
Kansas  City  University,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Church  and 
the  generous  bequest  of  Dr.  Mather  of  Kansas  City,  Kan. ;  also 
an  invitation  from  the  rapid-transit  street  car  company  to  the 
public  park  of  Kansas  City,  Mo.  On  the  election  of  General 
Conference  officers.  Dr.  Stephens  announced  that  he  had  accepted 
the  Chancellorship  of  Kansas  City  University,  and  was  not  a 
candidate  for  reelection  to  the  editorship  of  the  Methodist 
Recorder;  Dr.  M.  L.  Jennings  received  on  the  third  ballot  73  out 
of  129  votes.  For  editor  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Dr.  F.  T. 
Tagg  received  on  the  first  ballot  109  out  of  124  votes.  The  Sec- 
retary was  ordered  to  cast  the  ballot  of  the  Conference  for  J.  F. 
Cowan  as  editor  of  the  Sunday-school  literature.  For  Corre- 
sponding Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  Eev.  T.  J . 
Ogburn  of  North  Carolina  received  93  out  of  130  votes.  The 


SALIENT  BUSINESS  OF  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  675 

Secretary  of  the  Conference  was  ordered  to  cast  the  ballot  for 
J.  C.  Berrien  as  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Minis- 
terial Education.  Benjamin  Stout  for  Corresponding  Secretary 
of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  received  72  out  of  123  votes. 
For  Publishing  Agent  at  Baltimore  W.  J.  C.  Dulany  received  81 
out  of  98  votes.  For  Publishing  Agent  at  Pittsburgh,  U.  S. 
Fleming  received  97  out  of  114  votes.  Fraternal  interchanges 
took  place  between  the  Conference  and  the  Woman's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society  of  the  Church,  then  holding  its  annual  session 
in  the  city.  The  office  of  Treasurer  of  the  several  General  Boards 
was  merged  into  that  of  the  Corresponding  Secretary,  and  each 
to  be  bonded  in  the  sum  of  $5000.  The  place  for  the  ensuing 
General  Conference  was  referred  as  by  Discipline  to  the  President 
and  the  Board  of  Publication.  Greetings  were  ordered  to  the 
General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  then  in 
session  at  Cleveland,  0. ;  their  return  response  to  those  of  1892 
it  having  been  discovered  had  failed  of  transmission.  The  Hymn 
Book  question  was  disposed  of  by  ordering  certain  improvements 
in  the  present  book.  The  Woman^s  Foreign  Missionary  Record 
was  recognized  as  the  official  paper  of  that  society.  Fraternal 
greetings  from  the  Eeformed  Episcopal  Church  were  reciprocated. 
A  paper  against  the  use  of  tobacco,  with  certain  recommendations 
as  to  the  youth  of  the  Church,  was  passed.  Greetings  from  the 
National  Council  of  the  Congregational  churches  were  recipro- 
cated. After  remarks  by  the  President,  the  Conference  ad- 
journed. May  23,  to  meet  on  the  third  Friday  in  May,  at  10  a.m., 
1900. 

The  proceedings  of  this  Conference  make  a  pamphlet  of  131 
octavo  pages,  and  a  summation  in  addition  to  the  foregoing,  made 
from  the  reports,  is  as  follows.  The  subject  of  changes  in  the 
Articles  of  Eeligion  was  indefinitely  postponed.  The  Shorter 
Catechism  of  the  Church  was  ordered  revised  and  published  with 
the  issues  of  the  Sunday-school  literature,  as  also  the  revised 
text  of  the  Scriptures  in  parallel.  A  committee  of  seven  was 
appointed  to  act  on  Eevision  of  the  Discipline  in  the  interval  of 
the  quadrennial  session,  to  whom  a  large  number  of  amendments 
were  referred,  all  of  which  as  adopted  must  be  approved  by  the 
ensuing  General  Conference.  The  report  of  the  Young  People's 
Society  of  Christian  Endeavor  showed  an  increase  from  10,965 
members  in  1892  to  about  35,000  in  1896,  or  over  three  hundred 
per  cent.  An  Act  of  Incorporation  of  the  General  Conference 
was  secured  from  the  Maryland  legislature,  conferring  certain 


676 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


rights  and  privileges,  with  the  following  as  the  trustees :  J.  W. 
Hering,  J.  D.  Kinzer,  F.  T.  Little,  W.  M.  Stray er,  J.  T.  Lassell, 
J.  W.  Miles,  T.  A.  Murray,  and  J.  G.  Clarke  of  Maryland,  D.  S. 
Stephens  of  Ohio,  H.  W.  Reeves  of  Pennsylvania,  W.  L.  Wilson 
of  Illinois,  S.  S.  Stanton  of  Indiana,  T.  H.  Cocheu  of  New  York, 
and  W.  A.  Bunch  of  Xorth  Carolina.  This  important  action  gives 
a  legal  status  to  the  General  Conference.  The  reports  on  pub- 
lishing houses  showed  for  the  Sunday-school  literature  a  circula- 
tion of  139,840,  a  gain  of  over  11,000  for  the  quadrennium.  The 
Pittsburgh  Directory  shows  present  assets  over  liabilities  to  be 
$53,4.37.08,  a  net  gain  of  6154.25,  and  at  Baltimore  of  S8271.18, 
a  net  gain  of  $596.87  for  the  quadrennium.  Our  Touny  People, 
organ  of  the  Christian  Endeavor  Society,  was  discontinued,  the 
support  being  inadequate.  The  circulation  of  the  official  papers 
showed  no  material  gain  or  loss  for  the  quadrennium.  The 
Woman's  Home  Mission  Board  was  recognized,  a  constitution 
adopted,  and  officers  elected.  The  report  on  Foreign  Missions 
showed  total  receipts  for  the  quadrennium  $52,260.79.  The 
Home  Mission  Board,  total  receipts  for  the  quadrennium, 
$26,242.25.  The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  reported 
total  receipts  for  the  quadrennium,  $17,822.34.  The  report  of 
the  Board  of  Ministerial  Education  showed  total  receipts  for  the 
quadrennium,  $19,135.72.  Western  Maryland  and  Adrian  col- 
leges made  favorable  reports,  and  Kansas  City  University  was  rec- 
ognized among  the  official  institutions  of  the  Church.  Overtures 
were  submitted  to  the  Annual  Conferences  to  seat  women  repre- 
sentatives in  the  General  Conference  and  their  eligibility  to  the 
order  of  elder;  to  seat  Presidents  of  Christian  Endeavor  Societies 
in  the  Quarterly  Conferences ;  to  elect  stewards  by  given  methods : 
to  change  the  General  Conference  from  every  four  to  every  six 
years.  The  Committee  on  Statistics,  report  for  Sunday-schools 
and  Christian  Endeavor  Societies;  that  for  membership  and 
church  property,  etc.,  is  shown  on  opposite  page. 


Summary  of  Comparison  with  Journal  of  Last  Coxferesce 


l5% 

IXCEEASE 

1,560 

1,485 

65 

Unstationed  Ministers  and  Preachers 

1,116 

1,125 

Dec.  9 

179,092 

141,272 

37,821 

4,624 

4,120 

504 

2,267 

2,181 

86 

484 

405 

79 

Value  of  Church  Property 

s4,519,3o7 

$3,5ol,3o9 

$967,998 

STATISTICS  OF  1896  677 


Report  of  Committee  on  Statistics 


Annual  Conferences 

Ministers  and 
Preachers 

ITnstationed 
Ministers  and 
Preachers 

Members 

Probationers 

Churches 

Parsonages 

Value  of 

Church 

Property 

31 

11 

5,079 

190 

86 

6 

•If 65, 893 

Alabama,  Colored     .  . 

7 

4 

500 

7 

7 

1,000 

32 

35 

5,733 

71i 

16 

26,431 

Arkansas,  Colored    .  . 

17 

488 

11 

9 

500 

Baltimore,  Colored  . 

1() 

238 

10 

7 

Central  Texas  .... 

31  > 

32 

2,181 

13 

38 

4 

14,938 

Colorado,  Texas 

30 

30 

1,744 

96 

5 

4 

4,475 

Colorado,  Texas,  Col.  . 

20 

11 

700 

10 

11 

2 

4,324 

Charleston  Mission,  Col. 

17 

19 

996 

15 

2 

11,4.50 

7 

3 

350 

64 

11 

2,500 

30 

6 

1,514 

75 

8 

4,500 

18 

6 

785 

64 

16^ 

8 

42,500 

24 

6 

3,012 

50 

48 

23, .100 

Georgia,  Colored  i .    .  . 

28 

35 

1,078 

42 

27 

11,990 

48 

64 

8^419 

170 

I2O5 

24 

182,150 

47 

32 

3^989 

675 

22 

100,100 

Indian  Mission  .... 

20 

3 

710 

5 

1,200 

47 

37 

3,121 

31 

lb 

58,.300 

36 

39 

1,917 

226 

8,500 

10 

6 

1,800 

30 

5,000 

146 

84 

21*612 

1,935 

276^ 

84 

1,194,400 

70 

33 

3^651 

73 

73 

33 

139,775 

49 

46 

3*031 

375 

10 

34,325 

22 

21 

2,225 

53 

53 

1 

11,550 

Muskingum  

73 

43 

14,586 

98 

153 

18 

288,150 

17 

7 

750 

8 

4 

7,300 

35 

28 

3  625 

130 

44 

15 

197,625 

27 

19 

2*209 

116 

26 

12 

198,900 

North  Carolina     .    .  . 

54 

39 

16^416 

174 

208 

12 

145,487 

North  Illinois  .... 

36 

17 

3^218 

11 

49 

21 

123,400 

North  Mississippi  .    .  . 

17 

5 

1,239 

29 

3,875 

North  Missouri     .    .  . 

21 

21 

2,191 

"9 

29 

6 

24,075 

Ohio  

52 

39 

6,099 

199 

99 

29 

o09,o50 

54 

27 

2,167 

231 

39 

27 

92,500 

Washington  and  Oregon 

32,070 

Pennsylvania  .... 

16 

*io 

1,146 

"3 

201 

6 

67 

46 

8,981 

95 

801 

23 

551,510 

South  Carolina  .... 

9 

11 

1,865 

26 

30 

2 

17,300 

South  Illinois  .... 

34 

10 

2,449 

149 

50 

8 

43,328 

11 

13 

1,929 

26 

2 

17,000 

20 

22 

3,443 

'24 

26k 

7 

13,795 

17 

6 

2,623 

38 

28 

17,500 

West  Michigan     .    .  . 

45 

26 

1,718 

31 

17 

48,000 

West  Virginia  .... 

76 

121 

16,076 

218 

3191 

38 

323,190 

Northwest  Texas  .    .  . 

35 

30 

2,424 

6^ 

3 

5, .500 

Japan  Mission  .... 

12 

3 

254 

44 

3 

1 

5,500 

St.  Louis  Mission  .    .  . 

10 

10 

620 

6 

1 

Chickasaw  Mission  i  .  . 

11 

300 

1,550 

1,116 

179,092 

4,624 

2,2673 

484 

.^4,524,857 

Ministers  and  Preachers  1,550 

Unstationed  Ministers  and  Preachers  1,1K) 

Total  Full  Members  181,758 


1  Last  quadrennium,  1892. 


678 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


These  figures  show  for  membership  a  net  increase  of  a  frac- 
tion under  twenty-seven  per  cent,  and  for  church  property  valua- 
tion a  fraction  under  twenty-five  per  cent  in  the  quadrennium. 
It  is  a  remarkable  exhibit,  and  compares  favorably,  not  only  with 
the  other  Methodisms  of  America,  but  with  any  of  the  evan- 
gelical Christian  bodies  without  exception.  The  question  may 
be  recurred  to  and  more  fully  elaborated  in  the  recapitulation  of 
this  entire  work  in  the  concluding  chapter.  It  is  about  double 
the  net  material  and  numerical  increase  of  the  Church  over  any 
quadrennium  in  its  history  except  those  of  1834-38.  It  points 
hopefully  to  a  membership  of  200,000  and  a  church  property 
valuation  of  $5,000,000  in  1900. 

The  Conference,  as  a  special  mark  of  respect  to  the  late  Cor- 
responding Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  Kev. 
T.  E.  Coulbourn,  ordered  his  missionary  sermon,  delivered  by 
proxy  before  the  Maryland  Conference,  to  be  published  in  full  in 
its  minutes. 

The  financial  depression  throughout  the  business  world  con- 
tinued, seriously  affecting  the  receipts  for  Church  purposes.  The 
ministry  and  membership  of  the  Church  returned  to  labor  under 
the  encouraging  exhibit  of  prosperity  indicated  by  the  statistics 
of  the  last  General  Conference.  The  Kansas  University  project 
was  pushed  to  a  successful  issue  by  President  Heinz  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees  by  a  contribution  of  $10,000,  and  by  the  unflagging 
efforts  of  Chancellor  Stephens.  Mather  Hall  of  the  main  build- 
ing was  completed  and  opened  in  October  under  promising  aus- 
pices, thus  securing  the  extensive  landed  property  bequeathed 
by  Dr.  Mather.  The  various  officials  of  the  Church  entered 
vigorously  upon  their  duties,  and  the  returns  made  to  the  autumn 
Conferences  indicated  growth  and  extension.  The  Texas  Metho- 
dist Protestant,  under  the  care  of  Kev.  Thomas  Aaron,  entered 
upon  its  second  year  as  the  local  paper  of  the  Texas  Conferences. 
The  Methodist  Protestant  Telephone  was  issued  in  November,  189G, 
in  Alabama,  by  Kev.  J.  T.  Howell,  as  the  organ  of  that  Confer- 
ence. It  makes  a  neat  appearance.  Among  those  of  the  veterans 
who  departed  this  life  during  the  current  year  it  seems  fitting  to 
name  Rev.  C.  H.  Harris,  D.D.,  of  North  Carolina,  who  deceased 
January  6,  1896,  over  eighty  years  of  age.  He  was  the  last  of 
the  Harris  brothers  who  were  so  conspicuous  in  the  Reform 
movement  in  that  Conference.  His  labors  richly  merit  this 
historic  embalmment.  Lewis  D.  Swisher  of  West  Virginia,  born 
May  12,  1819,  deceased  April  29,  189G.    He  had  a  continuous 


J.  T.  WARD. 


SAINTED  WORTHIES  OF  THE  CHURCH  G79 


connection  with  the  Church  from  1833  and  was  one  of  its  noblest 
laity.  Charles  W.  Ridgely,  Esq.,  born  June  2,  1815,  departed 
this  life  May  31,  1896.  He  was  connected  with  the  Church  from 
1837,  in  Baltimore,  and  was  noted  for  every  good  word  and  work. 
Eev.  John  R.  Nichols  of  the  Maryland  Conference,  born  June  4, 
1815,  deceased  July  22,  189G.  He  united  with  the  Church  Oc- 
tober, 1832,  and  with  the  Conference  in  1838,  and  for  nearly  sixty 
years  as  a  church  builder  and  revivalist  had  few  equals.  It  seems 
fitting  to  couple  the  names  of  two  worthy  women  of  Maryland : 
Mrs.  Annie  Cronice,  deceased  July  27,  1896,  aged  ninety-seven 
years  six  months  and  four  days,  and  Mrs.  Caroline  A.  Watkins, 
who  departed  this  life  in  the  winter  of  1896,  over  ninety  years 
of  age,  and  whose  connection  with  the  Church  dated  from  its 
origin.  Rev.  J.  T.  Ward,  D.D.,  born  August  21,  1820,  deceased 
March  11,  1897.  He  was  the  son  of  E,ev.  Ulysses  Ward,  an  old 
Reformer;  early  converted  in  the  Church  of  his  father,  and  well 
educated,  he  entered  the  ministry  of  the  Maryland  Conference, 
and  after  some  years  of  faithful  service  located  at  Westminster 
in  1866,  and  associated  himself  with  an  educational  project,  which 
in  1866-67  came  under  the  patronage  of  the  Maryland  Annual 
Conference,  and  of  which  he  was  elected  President  in  1870,  as  a 
general  Church  institution,  known  as  Western  Maryland  College. 
He  held  this  presidency  ably  and  with  personal  liberality  until 
1886,  when  he  became  President  of  Westminster  Theological 
Seminary,  which  he  held  until  his  decease  in  his  seventy-seventh 
year.    His  end  was  peace  and  his  memory  blessed. 

The  writer  specially  deplores  the  fact  that,  despite  persistent 
efforts,  no  data  could  be  obtained  of  the  labors  of  Rev.  William 
Remsburg,  who  was  for  many  years  prominent  in  the  West  and 
deceased  a  member  of  the  Iowa  Conference.  There  must  also  be 
added  to  the  death-roll  for  this  year  the  name  of  Rev.  P.  J.  Strong 
of  the  North  Illinois  Conference,  associated  with  the  Church  for 
sixty  years,  and  filling  a  large  place  in  its  activities.  Rev.  Joel 
S.  Thrap  of  the  Muskingum  Conference,  often  named  in  the 
previous  chapters  as  an  active  member  of  General  Conferences 
and  Conventions,  and  whose  record  is  unsurpassed  for  churchly 
devotion,  specially  in  connection  with  Adrian  College.  Henry 
Swope  of  Maryland,  a  pious  and  liberal  layman,  was  loved  and 
honored  by  all.  Rev.  Rhesa  S.  Norris  of  the  Maryland  Conference 
deceased  December  7,  1897,  in  the  seventy-eighth  year  of  his  age. 
He  united  with  the  Conference  in  1843,  and  was  honored  by  his 
brethren.    Rev.  Thomas  Aaron  of  Texas,  a  consecrated  man  and 


680 


BISTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFOUM 


was  an  active  itinerant  for  nearly  half  a  century.  A  life-long  in- 
valid, he  was  nevertheless  in  abundant  labors  to  the  end.  Rev. 
B.  F.  Duggan,  M.D.,  D.D.,  born  in  North  Carolina  January  22, 
1821,  departed  this  life  March  1,  1898.  He  removed  to  Tennessee 
in  1838,  embraced  religion,  and  united  with  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church  September,  1838.  Licensed  to  exhort  in  November, 
1842,  he  began  his  life-long  ministerial  work  August  27,  1843; 
preached  his  first  sermon  at  a  camp-meeting  in  Unionville,  Tenn., 
and  delivered  it  again  at  the  same  place  fifty  years  from  that 
date.  He  was  graduated  in  medicine  and  pursued  the  double 
calling  through  life  with  great  acceptance  and  success.  He  was 
many  times  elected  President  of  the  Conference,  as  well  as  to 
General  Conferences  and  Conventions.  His  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  Eeform  knew  no  bounds,  and  for  it  he  made  many  sac- 
rifices, while  his  personal  character  was  above  reproach.  His 
death-illness  found  him  fully  prepared;  it  was  a  conspicuous 
triumph  over  the  fear  of  the  last  enemy.  Eev.  John  Cowl,  D.D., 
was  born  in  Cornwall,  Eng.,  May  26, 1816,  and  came  to  this  country 
with  his  parents  while  an  infant.  Converted  in  1833,  he  at  once 
became  active  in  Church  work.  In  1837  he  united  with  the  Pitts- 
burgh Conference,  steadily  grew  as  a  preacher,  and  maintained 
through  life  a  high  position  in  the  ministry  and  in  the  councils 
of  the  Church.  He  never  swerved  from  his  allegiance  to  the 
cause  of  Reform  and  the  Master  he  served.  He  was  justly  con- 
sidered a  great  preacher,  while  his  modesty  equalled  his  abilities. 
After  forty  years'  service  he  was  compelled  by  failing  health  to 
retire,  surviving  for  twenty  years  to  adorn  his  home  near  Mos- 
cow, W.  Va.,  on  the  beautiful  Ohio.  After  a  lingering  illness 
he  peacefully  departed,  March  16,  1898. 

The  Southern  Methodist  Protestant,  a  small  four-page  paper, 
was  issued  in  Arkansas,  March  1,  1898,  Rev.  W.  C.  Jackson, 
editor,  and  Rev.  \Yilliam  Cox,  manager.  Wesley's  house  in 
City  Road  was  dedicated  as  a  Methodist  museum,  1898,  and  in 
recognition  of  its  objects  the  following  cablegram  was  sent  to  the 
managers,  and  duly  acknowledged. 

Baltimore,  Md.,  March  1,  1898. 
Rev.  T.  E.  Westerdale,  49  City  lioad,  London,  E.  C. 

The  Methodist  Protestant  Church  of  America  sends  greetings.  (Phil.  iv. 
20,  21.)  "  Now  unto  God  and  our  Father  be  glory  forever  and  ever.  Amen. 
Salute  every  saint  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  brethren  which  are  with  me  greet 
you."  J.  W.  Bering, 

President  of  the  General  Conference. 


SEVENTIETH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  NEW  CHURCH  681 


At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Ministerial  Education,  March  20, 
1898,  it  was  announced  that  a  bequest  of  $8000  had  been  paid  to 
Adrian  College  under  the  will  of  Mrs.  Kezerta,  widow  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Kezerta,  and  with  his  approval,  as  an  ante-mortem  intention, 
to  be  known  as  the  "  S.  P.  Kezerta  Fund,"  the  interest  to  be  used 
for  ministerial  education.  They  had  given  liberally  to  this  work 
for  many  years. 

The  Maryland  Conference  of  April,  1898,  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  prepare  a  suitable  programme  for  the  commemoration 
of  the  seventieth  anniversary  of  the  organization  of  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  — 1828-98.  It  was  carried  out  on  November 
13.  A  thirty -two  page  pamphlet  was  issued,  written  by  Rev. 
Dr.  T.  H.  Lewis,  and  ten  thousand  copies  distributed,  giving 
valuable  historical  matter  defensive  of  the  Church.  (See  extract, 
Appendix  J,  in  first  volume.)  The  Methodist  Protestant  also 
issued  a  special  double  number,  profusely  illustrated  and  fur- 
nishing a  compendium  of  general  and  local  Church  history,  which 
was  largely  circulated.  The  anniversary  was  fully  noticed  by 
the  secular  press,  and  the  Church  greatly  benefited  denomina- 
tionally by  this  revived  attention  to  its  character  and  claims. 
The  preliminary  committees  of  each  Methodism  to  arrange  for 
the  third  Ecumenical  Conference  convened,  and  the  President 
of  the  General  Conference  named  a  committee  for  this  Church. 
The  third  Pan-Conference  of  Methodism  will  be  held  in  London 
in  1901,  and  it  is  hoped  that  some  of  the  suggestions  for  federa- 
tion will  be  considered  and  made  operative  for  all  the  Methodisms 
of  the  world,  while  still  preserving  their  autonomy  as  denomina- 
tions ;  more  than  this  will  only  end,  as  heretofore,  in  distraction 
and  default. 

Rev.  J.  L.  Michaux,  D.D.,  of  North  Carolina,  deceased  July  6, 
1898,  aged  seventy-one  years.  He  was  one  of  the  oldest  mem- 
bers of  the  Annual  Conference  and  was  honored  by  his  brethren. 
Mention  is  elsewhere  made  of  his  many  years'  association  with 
the  Central  Protestant  as  editor  and  proprietor.  Rev.  W.  D. 
Tompkinson  of  the  Michigan  Conference  was  born  in  England  in 
1816,  and  deceased  July,  1898.  He  united  with  the  Conference 
in  1853,  and  was  honored  through  a  long  life  for  zeal  and  devo- 
tion. Rev.  J.  M.  Mason,  whose  name  stood  third  on  the  Pitts- 
burgh Conference  roll,  attended  the  session  of  September,  1898, 
but  fractured  his  thigh-bone  on  his  return  home  and  did  not  long 
survive.  He  was  over  eighty  years  of  age  and  served  the  Church 
for  half  a  century,  receiving  honor  from  his  brethren.  Rev. 


682 


HISTORY  OF  METUODIST  REFORM 


John  W.  Everest  of  the  Maryland  Conference  was  born  October 
22,  1810,  united  with  the  Conference  in  1832,  served  actively  for 
thirty-five  years,  and  passed  to  his  heavenly  reward,  August  2, 
1898,  in  the  eighty-eighth  year  of  his  age.  True  and  tried,  his 
end  was  peace.  J.  G.  Johnson,  M.D.,  D.D.,  was  born  January 
22,  1834,  and  deceased  August  12,  1898,  at  Abingdon,  Va.  He 
held  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  ministry  from  1868,  principally 
in  the  Virginia  Conference,  zealous  and  self-sacrificing,  often 
President,  and  representative  to  General  Conference,  he  was 
honored  and  loved  by  his  brethren.  Ealph  Collier  was  born 
October  7,  1819,  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  but  spent  his  youth,  man- 
hood, and  old  age  on  Tanner's  Creek  in  Dearborn  County,  Ind. 
The  Methodist  Episcopal  church  of  the  neighborhood  seceded  in 
1828,  and  Ralph  was  thus  associated  with  Reform  from  its  initia- 
tion, and  ever  remained  true  to  his  convictions.  He  was  a  many- 
sided  man,  self-cultured,  courageous,  and  God-fearing.  Prominent 
in  the  Washingtonian  movement  of  more  than  half  a  century  ago, 
a  Sunday-school  worker  and  leader  in  society,  he  was  never  found 
lacking  in  all  that  makes  Christian  manhood.  He  departed  peace- 
fully, August  20,  1898.  Closing  the  necrology  of  this  History, 
November,  1898,  with  these  worthy  names,  the  writer  deplores 
the  fact  that  so  large  a  number  of  the  early  Reformers  are  unmen- 
tioned,  despite  every  effort  to  discover  some  record  of  them. 
That  so  large  a  number  have  been  rescued  from  oblivion  is  a 
source  of  congratulation,  for  a  worthier  class  of  men  and  women 
never  adorned  any  Church. 

The  overtures  submitted  by  the  General  Conference  to  the 
Annual  Conferences  were  disposed  of  as  follows.  Up  to  Decem- 
ber, 1898,  the  President  of  the  General  Conference  furnishes  the 
information  that  of  the  forty-eight  Annual  Conferences  but 
twenty-four  have  voted,  with  a  result  which  can  be  accepted 
only  at  this  time  as  indicating  the  trend  of  opinion  on  the  several 
overtures  submitted.  The  non-acting  Conferences  may  yet  change 
this  trend  before  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  but  it  is  not 
probable.  First,  overture  on  the  eligibility  of  women  to  elder's 
orders  and  to  seats  in  the  General  Conference,  nineteen  Confer- 
ences for  and  four  against.  There  being  two  propositions  in  this 
overture,  the  Maryland  Conference  divided  it,  and  voted  nega- 
tively on  the  first  and  affirmatively  on  the  second.  Second,  to 
seat  Presidents  of  Christian  Endeavor  Societies  in  the  Quarterly 
Conferences,  twenty-four  for  and  none  against.  Third,  to  change 
the  mode  of  electing  stewards,  twenty-three  for  and  one  against. 


RESULT  OF  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OVERTURES  G83 


Fourth,  to  change  the  assembling  of  the  General  Conference  from 
four  to  six  years,  two  in  favor  and  twenty-one  against.  In  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  the  result  of  two  overtures  was  as 
follows.  First,  on  tlie  admission  of  women  in  the  General  Con- 
ference, on  the  general  subject  the  vote  stood  7455  for  and  3636 
against.  On  an  equal  delegation  of  laymen  in  the  General  Con- 
ference, the  vote  stood  4412  for  and  10,776  against.  As  it  requires 
by  the  Discipline  three-fourths  of  all  the  ministers  in  the  Annual 
Conferences  to  carry  a  measure,  both  the  overtures  are  lost, 
though  there  is  a  large  majority  vote  in  favor  of  the  first  overture 
and  a  large  majority  against  the  second.  It  indicates  how  remote 
is  the  prospect  of  even  equal  lay-delegation  in  the  General  Con- 
ference of  that  Church,  while  for  an  equal  lay-representation  it  is 
not  in  sight,  to  say  nothing  of  Annual  Conference  representation, 
or  even  delegation.^  It  accords  with  the  prognostications  ven- 
tured elsewhere  in  this  chapter,  and  is  in  line  with  all  the  exam- 
ples of  history.  Entailed  and  entrenched  power  rarely,  if  ever, 
voluntarily  surrenders  its  prerogatives,  so  that,  both  in  State  and 
Church,  it  will  rather  blindly  invite  Eevolution, —  it  is  a  fact 
written  on  all  the  pages  of  the  past. 

On  the  announcement  of  the  result  as  to  lay-delegation,  the 
long-suffering  and  patient  laity  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  were  greatly  disappointed,  and  having  but  slight  knowl- 

1  In  the  Western  Recorder  for  March  7,  1850,  the  venerable  W.  S.  Stockton,  in 
a  series  of  articles  verifying  the  writers  for  the  Wesley  an  Repository  with  a  sketch 
of  its  history,  speaking  of  the  so-called  "gag-law"  of  the  General  Conference  of 
1796,  and  which  has  been  perpetuated  substantially  to  this  day,  and  which  pro- 
vided for  expulsion  from  the  Church  for  causes  other  than  immorality,  *'  inveighing 
against  the  discipline,"  etc.,  ventures  this  prognostication :  "  They  will  certainly 
hold  to  their  law.  The  occasion  for  its  use  will  never  cease  until  they  are  forced 
to  grant  church  representation.  When  will  that  be?  Probably  when  the  Meth- 
odist Protestant  Church  can  count  numbers  with  their  church.  When  ministers 
will  be  as  well  provided  for  in  the  M.  P.  C.  as  in  the  M.  E.  C.  Then  theoretical 
reformers  can  afford  to  minister  in  free  churches.  Self-preservation  appears  to 
be  the  first  law  of  individuals,  as  of  society,  and  of  nature.  Tliis  was  true  thirty 
years  ago."  Yes,  from  1820.  Witness  the  renegades  and  apostates  and  effemi- 
nates of  the  period,  —  theoretical  reformers  who  lacked  the  courage  of  their  con- 
victions. Yes,  witness  that  not  until  1872,  more  than  twenty  years  after  Stockton 
wrote  these  vaticinations,  was  a  fractional  lay-delegation  admitted  to  their  Gen- 
eral Conference.  And  it  is  coincident  that  in  the  ratio  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church  has  grown  in  numbers  and  Church  property  has  the  agitation  for 
lay-delegation  grown  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church;  and  it  will  probably 
prove  literally  true  that  before  it  is  granted  the  Reform  Church,  at  least  in  locali- 
ties, shall  have  "counted  numbers,"  and  possessed  a  ministry  "as  well  provided 
for  "  as  in  the  mother  Church.  Yet  a  lay-delegation  worthy  of  the  name  seems 
but  little  nearer  a  consummation  in  the  M.  E.  Church  than  when  Stockton  ventured 
this  forecast,  now  nearly  a  half  century  ago. 


684 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


edge  of  the  struggle  which  has  been  waged  for  a  hundred  years, 
the  discouragements  of  such  precedents  as  this  History  depicts 
did  not  come  into  their  hopeful  councils.  The  agitation  exhibited 
itself  in  calls  for  lay-conventions  to  consider  the  matter,  and  in 
Baltimore,  Indianapolis,  and  Chicago  large  meetings  were  held, 
with  a  proposition  from  the  Indianapolis  meeting  to  invite  general 
cooperation  throughout  the  Church  and  hold  a  General  Conven- 
tion in  the  autumn  of  1898,  with  a  more  serious  purpose  than 
ever  of  demanding  recognition  from  their  ministerial  brethren. 
That  the  leaven  is  working  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Several  of 
the  bishops  have  openly  pronounced  in  favor  of  equal  lay-delega- 
tion, and  some  of  the  Advocates  are  indorsing  it.  The  organiza- 
tion of  Laymen's  Associations  within  the  Conferences  goes  on, 
with  objectives  precisely  identical  with  those  of  the  Union 
Societies  of  1824-30,  but  no  whisper  is  now  heard  of  their  dis- 
loyal character ;  much  less  does  any  one  suggest  that  these  overt 
acts  are  grounds  for  expulsion  as  "  inveighing  against  the  disci- 
pline" and  "speaking  evil  of  ministers."  The  old  prejudices, 
however,  against  the  "  radicals  "  survive.  This,  added  to  policy, 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  these  conventions  and  associations 
rarely,  if  ever,  make  mention  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 
as  a  living  exemplification  of  the  successful  working  of  the  theory 
they  are  contending  for,  while  such  Advocates  as  favor  the  move- 
ment are  zealously  careful  to  disclaim  any  likeness  with  the 
Reform  of  1828-30.  It  does  not,  however,  make  it  any  less  the 
duty  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  through  all  its  agencies 
to  enlighten  the  Methodist  mind  upon  the  subject.  It  is  one  of 
the  purposes  for  which  this  History  was  written.^ 

1  Since  this  paragraph  was  written,  in  March,  1898,  the  question  having  been 
resubmitted  with  the  revolutionary  result  in  the  ballots  of  8787  in  favor  of  equal 
delegation  in  the  General  Conference,  and  but  14%  against,  up  to  the  last  report 
in  the  New  York  Christian  Advocate  of  November  3, 1898,  making  it  certain  that 
the  Conferences  yet  to  hear  from  cannot  change  this  result.  The  query  will  not 
down :  what  has  wrought  this  marvellous  change  in  the  ministers  of  that  Church 
within  two  years?  No  arguments  were  presented  or  facts  evolved,  thus  to  change 
men's  minds.  What  was  it?  The  answer  is,  that  when  the  result  of  the  first 
balloting  became  known  to  the  laity  of  that  Church,  denying  them  this  right  to 
equal  delegation,  the  sensation  was  so  profound  and  the  determination  .so  marked 
in  the  laity  that,  if  peaceful  petition  could  be  thus  cavalierly  treated,  they  would 
organize  and  demand  to  the  point  of  revolution.  Immense  meetings  of  the  laity 
were  held  in  various  places,  culminating  in  an  advertised  purpose  to  hold  a  Gen- 
eral Convention  of  laymen  in  October,  1898,  at  Indianapolis,  Ind.  There  could  be 
no  mistaking  the  menace  of  these  long-suffering  laymen.  Roused  at  last  to  the 
extremity  of  overt  resistance,  if  need  be,  officialism,  that  potent  factor  in  hierar- 
chies, took  alarm,  and  the  word  was  sent  along  the  line  of  the  army  of  presiding 


LAY  AGITATION  DEEPENING 


685 


The  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  assembled  in  Baltimore  in  May,  1898.  It  was  an  impos- 
ing body  of  representative  men,  and,  true  to  its  conservative 
policy,  legislated  carefully.  It  indorsed  the  action  of  its  com- 
missioners inaugurating  Federation  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  (See  a  foot-note  in  the  closing  chapter  of  this  History.) 
The  Church  had  been  awarded  by  the  Federal  government  during 
the  session  of  Congress  of  1898  the  sum  of  $285,000  to  reimburse 
their  publishing  house  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  for  damage  and  occu- 
pation to  the  buildings  during  the  Civil  War.^  Fifty  thousand 
dollars  of  this  sum  was  appropriated  by  the  General  Conference 
to  establish  a  publishing  house  at  Shanghai,  China.  It  is  a  for- 
ward missionary  movement,  and  one  of  the  objectives  of  the 
proposea  Methodist  Federation  as  to  the  foreign  work.  The 
numerical  growth  of  the  Church  during  the  quadrennium  was  not 
satisfactory  to  the  General  Conference.  An  estimate  shows  it  to 
have  been  but  S^^  per  cent,  a  large  decline  over  past  years.  But 
the  same  decline  menaces  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the 
year  1897-98  showing  but  a  fraction  of  gain.  There  are  also  some 
indications  that  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  1900  will 
fall  short  of  the  expectation  raised  by  the  spurt  forward  of 
1892-96.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  these  fluctuations,  which 
occur  at  intervals  in  the  history  of  all  denominations.  The  Con- 
ference also  appointed  a  commission  to  find  the  "Constitution" 
of  the  Church,  thus  following  the  fruitless  quest  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  destined  to  be  as  nugatory. 

elders:  Yield,  or  worse  things  may  happen  to  exclusive  powers.  What  a  com- 
ment it  is  also  upon  independent  thinking  and  voting  by  the  ministers  of  that 
Church  !  A  three-to-one  majority  against  is  changed  to  a  ten-to-one  majority  in 
favor  within  two  years,  nothing  occurring  in  the  meantime  but  the  public  menace 
of  these  outraged  laymen.  And  be  it  observed  that  the  laity  in  this  victory  have 
a  lay -delegation  in  equal  numbers  only.  It  is  in  no  sense  a  lay-representation,  as 
is  demonstrated  in  Appendix  J  to  the  first  volume  of  this  History,  to  which  the 
intelligent  reader  is  referred. 

1  After  this  award  had  been  made,  it  was  discovered  that  about  one-third  of 
the  whole  sum  had  been  pledged  to  a  lobbyist  for  his  active  agency  in  securing  it. 
An  investigation  seriously  involved  the  publishing  agent,  Barbee,  and  led  the  offi- 
cials of  the  Church  to  repudiate  the  bargain,  and  to  decline  the  whole  award,  if 
need  be,  for  the  vindication  of  the  Church  honor.  It  remains  to  be  seen  what 
action  Congress  may  take,  if  any,  and  what  the  final  disposition  the  Church  shall 
make  of  the  compromising  involvement. 


CHAPTER  XL 


Conclusion ;  argumentative  summation  —  Have  the  postulates  of  the  introductory 
chapter  been  proven?  —  Ideals  in  polities;  Paternalism  vs.  Individualism  — 
The  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  an  ideal  system  demonstrated;  defects 
not  yet  fully  remedied ;  subjectively,  lack  of  educational  method  as  to  its  pol- 
ity ;  objectively,  even  more  serious ;  failure  to  make  the  Church  known  through 
the  press  and  otherwise ;  reasons  for  it ;  the  remedy  not  too  late  and  should  be 
applied  —  The  world's  Methodism  a  unit  as  to  doctrine  and  means  of  grace,  but 
the  original  polities  always  a  source  of  unrest  and  dissent  —  Has  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  succeeded  as  a  voting  lay-representative  Church  as  well, 
other  things  being  equal,  as  a  non-voting  clerically  governed  Church?  Analy- 
sis and  proofs  of  the  affirmative  —  Liberal  Methodism  in  England  a  success; 
statistics ;  likewise  in  America  —  Success  of  Liberal  principles  not  to  be  gauged 
by  numbers,  but  their  permeating  and  modifying  power  over  the  parent  bodies ; 
facts  —  Lay-delegation  conceded  grudgingly;  if  right  now,  always  right  —  Uj)- 
shot  of  the  whole  matter ;  prognostications. 

Ix  concluding  this  "  History  of  Methodist  Eeform  "  the  writer 
has  imposed  upon  him  the  task,  as  a  logical  necessity,  of  answering 
the  question  made  a  challenge  in  the  opening  chapter:  Have  the 
fundamental  postulates  been  sustained  by  the  facts  presented  and 
the  arguments  adduced?  These  postulates  are  principally  three 
in  number,  and  so  germane  to  each  other,  that  the  separate  classes 
of  facts  by  which  they  are  demonstrated  mass  themselves  in  a 
logical  culmination.  Indeed,  two  of  them  are  very  closely  allied, 
namely:  Ecclesiastical  Paternalism  is  responsible  for  all  the 
schism  in  the  Parent  body  subsequent  to  the  Deed  of  Declaration 
as  epochal  of  an  organized  departure  from  New  Testament  prece- 
dents, .  .  .  and  it  was  the  ill-advised  perpetuation  of  Paternalism 
in  the  Deed  of  Declaration  for  the  former,  and  the  purposeful  per- 
petuation of  it  in  the  hasty  organization  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  for  the  latter,  that  made  a  Church  for  the  Ministry, 
and  not  a  Ministry  for  the  Church ;  the  scriptural,  rational,  and 
natural  order,  ...  so  that  the  Deed  of  Declaration  was  the 
cardinal  error  of  English  Methodism  in  giving  corporate  form  to 
an  oligarchic  entail  of  governmental  power;  and  the  organization 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  on  the  hierarchic  plan  was 
the  cardinal  error  of  American  Methodism,  with  a  like  result 
greatly  exaggerated. 

G80 


J.  J.  SMITH. 


LOGICAL  FUNDAMENTALS  REVIEWED  687 


No  one  can  be  more  fully  aware  than  the  writer  that  these 
contentions  will  be  stoutly,  if  not  scornfully,  denied  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  Paternal  system  of  Church  government.^  In  fact,  it 
has  been  so  wrought  into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  Methodistic 
history,  both  in  England  and  America,  that  to  deny  the  highest 
wisdom  to  these  entails  corporately  secured  is  simply  reckless 
and  presumptuous.  This  much  the  writer  has  heretofore  con- 
ceded; it  is  a  question  of  ideals  —  Paternalism  vs.  Individualism. 
Both  State  and  Church  furnish  examples  of  each,  with  the  advan- 
tage to  Paternalism,  that  they  are  century  old  and  well-organized 
potentialities.  Ranged  on  the  side  of  Paternalism  are  the 
hierarchies  of  State  and  Church ;  ranged  on  the  side  of  Individu- 
alism are  the  republics  of  State  and  Church.  It  has  been  affirmed 
that  all  ideals  are  impracticable.  There  is  the  substance  of  truth 
in  the  allegation,  but  with  exceptions  and  qualifications.  The 
hierarchy  is  an  ideal,  but  surely  it  will  not  be  claimed  that  its 
practical  embodiment  is  not  found  in  the  Popedom.  This  system 
has  crystallized  through  a  millennium,  and  as  an  ideal  has  its 
imitations  in  the  Episcopal  systems  of  Protestantism.  Republi- 
canism is  an  ideal,  but  it  would  be  venturesome  to  declare  that 
an  eminently  practical  form  of  it  is  not  exhibited  in  the  United 
States  of  America.  And  it  is  in  this  sense  as  an  exception  that 
it  is  claimed  for  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  that  it  does 
make  its  ideal  practical.    This  does  not  set  it  up  as  perfect  or 

1  "  History  of  Methodism  in  the  United  States,"  by  James  M.  Buckley.  In  two 
volumes;  small  quarto;  profusely  illustrated  and  embellished.  The  Christian 
Literature  Company,  New  York. 

Altogether  this  is  the  fairest  presentation  of  American  Methodism  as  to  the 
dissenting  branches  ever  issued  by  an  author  of  the  dominant  body.  It  is  very 
succinct  and  scrappy  under  limitation  of  space,  but  quite  an  encyclopedia  of  facts. 
As  a  representative  of  Episcopal  Methodism  his  views  on  the  "Divisions  of 
Methodism  "  shall  be  cited  as  in  proof  of  the  declaration  to  which  this  note  is 
appended.  He  says:  "The  divisions  of  Methodism  arose  from  causes  which  in 
all  ages  have  produced  ecclesiastical  controversy,  and  which,  with  the  decline  of 
genuine  unity  and  individual  devotion,  led  to  rupture  when  not  suppressed  by 
force,  or  to  external  decay  unless  the  church  is  sustained  by  the  state,  and  to  infi- 
delity and  immorality  in  large  degree  where  the  outward  forms  of  religion  are 
maintained  by  endowment  or  taxation ;  namely,  differences  of  judgment  concern- 
ing discipline,  ceremony,  and  doctrine,  and  more  potent  than  all,  the  personal  ambi- 
tions of  men  who,  when  disappointed,  become  embittered ;  or  when  successful, 
grow  insupportable  by  reason  of  the  spirit  of  tyranny  engendered.  All  these 
causes,  except  radical  divergencies  of  doctrine,  can  be  traced  in  the  development 
of  American  Methodism."  Vol.  II.  p.  439.  Lacking  as  it  is  in  perspicuity,  this 
paragraph,  every  reader  will  see,  evades  the  true  issue  made  in  this  "  History  of 
Methodist  Reform."  He  could  not  be  expected,  as  a  champion  of  the  Episcopal 
hierarchy,  to  see  this  issue,  and  the  paragraph  is  cited  in  full  as  the  best  apology 
a  hierarchic  mind  could  frame,  but  unsatisfactory  even  as  an  apology. 


688 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


its  practice  as  finished.  It  is  admitted  that  in  the  light  of 
seventy  years'  experience  as  a  working  hypothesis  what  it  still 
needs  is  to  bring  "the  regiment  up  to  the  flag."  What  that  flag 
symbolizes  is  ideally  true  and  practically  possible,  but  the  regi- 
ment needs  a  higher  education  to  the  point  of  full  appreciation 
of  loyal  service  and  bountiful  support. 

The  polity  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  as  an  ideal  has 
been  worked  out  and  demonstrated  practicable  wherever  it  has 
had  an  environment  commensurate  with  its  character;  for  every 
system  is  to  be  judged  by  its  best  and  not  its  worst  examples. 
As  exhibited  in  the  Maryland  Annual  Conference,  the  Muskin- 
gum, the  Pittsburgh,  the  Ohio,  the  North  Carolina,  the  West 
Virginia,  and  others  that  might  be  named,  no  spectator  or  inves- 
tigator can  discover  in  its  working  more  of  friction  than  is  una- 
voidable through  the  fallibility  of  human  invention  as  a  system, 
however  closely  it  may  be  modelled  after  the  Xew  Testament 
precedents  and  the  practice  of  the  apostolic  Church.  If  its  ideal 
fails  of  its  fullest  expression  in  any  of  the  Annual  Conferences, 
it  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  lack  of  a  persevering  and  thorough 
educational  method  by  its  official  teachers.  This  defect  has 
operated  detrimentally  both  in  the  subject  and  the  object.  There 
is  a  damaging  deficiency  in  the  knowledge  of  its  Constitution  and 
Discipline,  even  among  those  who  are  administrators ;  much  more 
by  consequence  among  its  membership.  Within  a  decade  the 
General  Conference,  alive  to  this  subjective  defect,  ordered  that 
Quarterly  Conferences  should  furnish  the  pastors  with  Disciplines, 
to  be  presented  to  all  new  members  as  an  educational  crusade. 
How  great  was  the  need  of  such  legislation  developed  in  the  in- 
difference, if  not  positive  opposition,  of  not  a  few  of  these  official 
bodies  and  pastors  on  the  sordid  ground  of  expense  to  the  local 
churches.  A  farther  effort  was  made  to  remedy  this  defect  when 
there  was  added  to  the  larger  catechism  of  the  Church  a  brief 
essay  on  church  government,  as  an  education  to  its  youth.  It 
is  also  discovered  in  the  inadequate  support  given  the  official 
papers,  the  authorized  exponents  of  its  ideal.  It  will  not  do  to 
attribute  this  educational  defect  to  want  of  greater  authority. 
The  Xew  York  Christian  Advocate,  representative  of  the  strongest 
ecclesiastical  polity  outside  of  Rome,  in  its  issue  of  May  17,  1894, 
estimated  the  membership  of  the  Church  at  that  time  at  2,500,000, 
and  the  number  of  Advocates  —  official  papers  taken  —  as  less 
than  150,000,  or  one  in  seventeen  of  the  membership,  and  that 
not  more  than  one-half  of  the  officiality  were  subscribers  to  the 


EDUCATIONAL  DEFECT  IN  THE  NEW  CHURCH  689 

Church  papers.  Many  comparisons  are  invidious,  but  it  is  often 
the  only  method  for  reaching  a  conclusion.  The  writer's  editorial 
connection  with  the  Methodist  Protestant  for  nearly  a  score  of 
years  qualifies  him  to  estimate  for  it  at  the  same  period  a  mem- 
bership of  180,000,  and  the  number  of  Church  papers  taken  as 
approximately  10,000,  or  one  in  eighteen  of  the  membership,  and 
for  the  officiality  of  the  Church  about  one-half.  So  tliat  under 
either  polity  there  is  a  deficiency  such  as  should  lead  the  respec- 
tive organizations  to  a  concerted  movement  all  along  the  line, 
until  this  per  cent  is  raised  from  one  in  seventeen  to  about  one 
in  six,  —  a  standard  maintained  in  several  of  the  smaller  denomi- 
nations,—  and  until  not  an  official  member  shall  fail  to  be  a  sub- 
scriber to  a  Church  paper  and  be  the  owner  of  a  Discipline. 

This  defect  in  the  educational  method,  objectively  considered, 
is  even  more  serious  in  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  In  its 
earlier  history  the  press  was  more  fully  subsidized  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  Reformers  of  former  days,  imbued  with  the  truth 
that  they  had  organized  a  Methodism  in  doctrine  and  means  of 
grace  which  was  to  stand  for  and  exemplify  the  grand  idea  of  the 
personal  sovereignty  of  the  Christian  believer  under  the  Christo- 
centric  truth:  "One  is  your  Master,  even  Christ}  and  all  ye  are 
brethren,"  were  diligent  in  its  promulgation  by  tongue  and  pen 
and  press. ^    But  the  opposition  it  provoked  in  those  of  counter 

1  "  A  military  attache  of  the  French  embassy  at  Washington  said  of  the  Ameri- 
can soldier  at  Santiago :  *  Another  marked  characteristic  is  the  self-reliance  of 
each  man,  what  we  call  the  character  of  "initiative  "  —  meeting  emergencies  as 
they  arise,  overcoming  obstacles  by  their  own  initiation.'  This  criticism  may  be 
applied  to  our  denomination  as  well.  The  time  was  when  it  exactly  described 
the  morale  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Church  of  mutual  rights.  .  .  .  The  very 
spirit  and  genius  of  the  Church  demanded  it  and  cultivated  it.  Every  man  then 
as  now  was  a  sovereign.  Its  leadership  is  vested,  not  in  individuals,  but  in  the 
whole  body  ecclesiastic.  That  we  have  departed  from  the  ancient  landmarks, 
and  that  we  have  lost  something  of  our  aggressive  and  eager  disposition,  is  voiced 
in  the  complaint  that  we  are  without  competent  leadership.  What  is  the  leader- 
ship that  is  wanted?  Is  it  bishops,  or  general  superintendents,  or  what  is  it? 
The  days  of  our  greatest  glory  and  the  days  of  our  greatest  influence  and  enlarge- 
ment were  the  days  when  the  rank  and  file  of  our  membership  fought  and  con- 
tended for  every  gain  of  their  cherished  principles.  .  .  .  Whether  or  not  we 
have  lost  what  we  once  possessed  as  a  denomination,  we  will  not  come  into  our 
birthright  as  a  Church  until  every  man  in  it,  in  the  position  to  which  he  is  called, 
and  in  which  he  works,  feels  that  in  the  keeping  of  himself  is  the  honor  and  pros- 
perity and  the  success  of  the  Church,  that  he  is  to  meet  every  emergency  which 
will  reflect  glory  upon  her  and  honor  the  cause  of  Christ.  Whenever  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Church  shall  turn  aggressor,  be  ready  to  begin  action,  and  carry  it 
through  on  the  lines  of  wisdom  and  independence,  within  the  limits  of  order  and 
of  law,  then  will  our  Church  have  come  to  her  rightful  prerogative  and  place." 
Dr.  Jennings  in  Methodist  Recorder,  July  23,  1898. 
VOL.  II  —  2  Y 


690 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


opinions  intimidated  a  peace-loving  people,  and  as  the  years  went 
by  they  came  to  prefer  doing  their  Church  work  in  a  corner. 
During  the  earlier  decades  of  its  history,  the  prophets  of  the 
Episcopal  Methodisms  having  pragmatically  announced  that  the 
new  Church,  "the  Kadicals,"  was  dying  or  dead,  their  officialism 
studiously  avoided  reference  to  it  as  advertising  its  continued 
existence.  It  is  only  within  a  comparatively  short  period  that 
the  press  of  the  older  Methodism  has  accorded  fraternal  and 
newsy  mention.  What  marvel  then  that  on  sundry  occasions  of 
inquiry  Methodist  Protestants  are  put  upon  the  defensive,  and 
explanations  made  necessary  of  its  differential  features  from  the 
other  ]\Iethodisms,  things  which  ought  to  be  open  "before  all 
Israel  and  the  sun."  And  yet  it  is  undeniable  that  whenever 
and  wherever  these  distinguishing  features  are  intelligently  ex- 
pounded to  the  uninformed,  general  approbation  follows  as  a 
verdict  in  favor  of  Christian  selfhood. 

The  Methodist  Protestant  Church  has  been  singularly  free  from 
proselytism.  And  this  is  not  a  case  of  self-praise  with  recom- 
mendation. A  fuller  propagandism  of  its  principles,  such  as 
they  merit,  would  probably  have  this  tendency,  but  the  writer, 
speaking  from  a  large  experience  and  wide  knowledge,  does  not 
know  pastor  or  people  who  by  direction  or  indirection  cultivates 
the  proselyte.  Xothing  is  more  evident,  however,  than  that 
pastors  and  people  should  feel  themselves  set  for  the  defence  of 
the  fathers  and  founders  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church; 
a  diligent  instillation  of  its  fundamentals  in  the  organization,  and 
an  opportune  spread  of  the  ideas  and  principles  for  which  it 
stands  out  of  it.  These  principles  in  their  last  analysis  are 
essentially  those  of  Protestantism,  not  so  much  in  that  phase  of 
the  great  Keformation  as  antagonizes  false  Eomish  dogma  though 
inclusive  of  it,  but  as  Protestantism  sets  itself  against  the  Pope- 
dom, lords  over  the  Christian  heritage,  big  or  little. 

Has  the  affirmation  been  sustained  that  the  cardinal  error  of 
organization  was  in  England  an  entailed  oligarchy,  and  in  America 
an  entailed  hierarchy,  in  the  parent  Methodisms,  and  that  these 
errors  are  responsible  for  the  schisms  which  have  occurred  on 
either  side  of  the  ocean?  The  writer  for  answer  can  only  fall 
back  upon  the  cumulation  of  evidence  these  volumes  present. 
The  careful  reader  can  recall  the  several  instances.  The  history 
of  Methodism  as  a  whole  presents  the  spectacle  of  numerous 
branches,  seventeen  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  alone,  but 
over  them  all  there  has  reigned  from  the  beginning  a  calm 


COMPARISON  OF  POLITIES 


G91 


acquiescence  in  Wesley's  doctrines  and  the  means  of  grace  he 
introduced  in  his  societies.  Scarcely  a  zephyr  has  ruffled  that 
calm.^  But  as  to  its  governmental  system,  the  entail  of  Wesley 
for  England,  and  the  entail  of  Asbury  for  America,  there  has  not 
ceased  to  be  from  the  same  beginning  a  deep  swell  of  agitation, 
which,  has  kept  the  parent  bodies  in  perpetual  unrest.  It  mocks 
all  logic  and  defies  all  knowledge  of  human  nature  not  to  confess 
that  there  must  have  been  something  radically  wrong  in  those 
entails.  It  is  the  primary  object  of  all  these  pages  to  exhibit 
that  radical  wrong.  The  maintenance  of  it  by  the  entailed 
ecclesiastical  power  provoked  the  conflicts  which  eventuated  in 
expulsions  and  secessions.  It  is  the  genius  of  the  autocratic 
regime  to  hold  fast  tenaciously  all  authority  and  to  make  constant 
encroachments  upon  the  domain  of  liberty.  If  concessions  are 
ever  made,  they  are  wrested  from  it  by  the  aggregation  of  that 
individual  force  which  has  ever  been,  as  the  whole  history  of  the 
world  proves,  mining  and  sapping  at  autocratic  power,  howsoever 
obtained  and  by  whomsoever  held.  The  writer  expects  that  the 
verdict  as  to  this  phase  of  the  postulate,  that  such  paternal  power 
organized  into  a  system  has  been  responsible  for  the  divisions  of 
Methodism  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  will  fail  of  unanimity. 
He  is  not  vain  enough  to  suppose  that  those  who  have  been  edu- 
cated in  the  old  Methodisms,  who  are  enamoured  of  it,  making 
success  in  numbers  and  wealth  the  criterion  of  right,  will  do 
aught  else  than  lay  down  these  volumes  claiming  the  Scotch  ver- 
dict, "not  proven."  He  will  be  content  if  he  shall  succeed  in 
illuminating  that  growing  class  of  young  men,  both  of  the  minis- 
try and  the  laity,  of  the  Episcopal  Methodisms  who  are  untram- 
melled by  the  prejudices  and  traditions  of  the  past  as  to 
governmental  reform,  and  render  a  like  service  for  the  youth  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  as  well  as  vindicate  the  truth 
of  history  as  to  the  old  issues  made  ever  young  by  the  inherent 
vitality  of  the  principles  involved.  He  again  embodies  and 
embalms  the  conviction  based  upon  this  truth  of  history,  that 
Methodism  to-day,  the  world  over,  would  have  been  as  much  of  a 
unit  ecclesiastically  as  it  is  a  unit  of  doctrine  and  means  of  grace 
but  for  the  oligarchic  entail  of  the  Deed  of  Declaration  by  Wesley 
and  the  hierarchic  entail  of  the  exclusively  clerical  organization 

1  Whitefield's  work  in  England  under  the  auspices  of  Lady  Huntingdon  for  its 
organized  position  and  of  the  Welsh  Methodists  an  offshoot,  both  of  them  Calvin- 
istic  Methodist,  can  scarcely  be  claimed  as  an  exception,  inasmuch  as  Whitefield 
made  no  concealment  of  his  doctrinal  views  from  the  beginning.  It  prevented 
coalition  with  Wesley,  but  cannot  be  called  a  schism. 


692 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  by  Asbury,  these  events 
synchronizing  with  1784. 

Another  postulate  of  this  History,  and  the  last  that  need  be 
elaborated  in  review,  is  that  a  voting,  lay-representative  Metho- 
dist Church  has  succeeded  by  the  criterion  of  numbers  and  wealth, 
other  things  being  equal,  fully  as  well  as  a  non-voting,  exclu- 
sively clerically  governed  one.  It  is  a  vital  issue,  and  thought- 
ful advocates  of  either  of  the  ideal  polities  considered  have  been 
and  are  awake  to  its  decisive  nature.  If  true,  then  it  cuts  away 
the  very  foundation  of  a  hierarchic  Methodism;  if  not  true,  it 
does  much  to  invalidate  the  reasons  for  Methodist  Eef orm,  though 
not  conclusive  as  to  the  abstract  right  or  wrong  of  the  systems. 
It  is  in  this  aspect,  the  wish,  it  is  to  be  feared,  being  father  to 
the  thought,  that  iteration  and  reiteration  have  been  constant  in 
the  official  press  and  the  officialism  of  the  Episcopal  Methodisms 
that  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  is  a  failure.  It  has  not 
succeeded,  say  its  historians;  as  a  working  hypothesis,  it  lacks 
momentum;  even  Christian  human  nature  needs  a  strong  govern- 
ment to  control  it;  and  so  through  the  round,  always  ending  with 
the  refrain,  it  has  not  succeeded.  It  is  going  down,  chuckled 
the  doughty  Dr.  Bond,  sixty  years  ago,  and  his  echoes  have  given 
it  back,  until  after  more  than  half  a  century  of  lively  existence, 
they  still  continue  in  remote  corners,  though  fallen  to  a  whisper, 
in  even  the  latest  of  Episcopal  chroniclers, —  it  has  not  succeeded. 

Many  come  to  believe  what  is  so  confidently  affirmed.  No 
one  questions  the  fact  that  the  hierarchic  Methodism  has  suc- 
ceeded. What  has  succeeded?  Vociferated  on  every  side  is  the 
answer  —  the  system,  the  system,  the  system!  The  sober,  wiser 
brethren  of  the  Episcopal  Methodisms  enter  demurrer  —  they 
know  better;  they  know  that  the  grand  source  of  success  has 
been  its  doctrines  and  its  methods,  distinguished  from  its  govern- 
mental system.  They  know  that  this  clamor  is  little  more  than : 
"  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians ! "  But  it  is  precisely  this ; 
the  system  as  credited  with  the  success  of  the  Episcopal  Metho- 
disms, and  the  want  of  it  in  the  Keformed  Methodisms  as  credited 
with  its  non-success,  that  issue  is  joined.  Take  some  facts. 
There  never  has  been  a  quadrennium  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church  which  has  not  shown  a  net  increase  of  membership  and 
value  of  Church  property.  A  comparison  of  statistical  tables  for 
any  given  period,  for  a  decade,  or  a  score  or  more  of  years,  for 
either  system,  is  not  in  disparagement  of  the  liberal  polity  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church.    The  success  of  the  one  has  been 


GROWTU  OF  THE  SYSTEMS  COMPARED 


693 


commensurate  with  the  success  of  the  other,  even  witliout  the 
qualification  attached  to  it  for  safety  of  estimate,  "other  things 
being  equal,"  though  there  never  has  been  a  period  when  these 
other  things  have  been  equal :  the  gravitation  that  gives  attrac- 
tive power  of  larger  bodies  over  smaller;  the  pull  of  large 
numbers  congregated  in  all  the  centres  against  small  numbers 
segregated  and  scattered.  Who  can  estimate  the  Sisyphean  toil 
of  a  principle  against  power;  of  want  against  plenty;  of  ostra- 
cism against  recognition;  of  the  many  influences  insidiously 
operating  against  brethren  under  ban  as  "  enemies  of  Methodism." 
At  the  present  writing  the  tabulations  which  figure-prove  the 
equal  success  of  the  Reform  system  with  that  of  the  Episcopal 
are  not  at  command,  but  shall  be  supplied  in  a  foot-note  for  the 
decades  of  the  past,  though  it  is  sufficient  if  the  most  recent  of 
these  tabulations  is  found  to  support  the  general  allegation.^ 

The  "Year  Book  "  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  for  1897 
furnishes  for  the  Old  World  Methodisms,  p.  129,  statistics  for 
the  parent  or  Wesleyan  body  in  the  British  Islands  for  1897  of 
494,287  members.  For  the  offshoots,  all  of  them  on  a  Methodist 
Protestant  basis  as  to  polity,  the  Primitives  having  two  laymen 
for  every  minister  in  their  legislative  body,  and  by  far  the  most 
prosperous  of  all,  the  following  tables  are  furnished :  Methodist 
New  Connexion,  37,202;  Bible  Christians,  34,303;  Primitive 
Methodists,  196,628;  United  Eree  Methodist  Churches,  89,618; 
United  Free  Gospel  Churches,  8609;  and  Wesleyan  Eeform 

1  By  the  kindness  of  Rev.  J.  F.  Cowan,  D.D.,  the  following  Comparative  State- 
ment of  the  Growth  of  the  M.  E.  and  the  M.  P.  Churches  by  Decades,  is  presented : 


GAIN  PER  CENT 

DECADES 

MEMBERSHIP 

NET  GAIN 

FOB  M.  P.  CHURCH 

1828 

5,000 

1838 

.39,000 

34,000 

680.00 

1848 

58,000 

19,000 

48.73 

1858 

75,000 

17,000 

29.31 

1868 

99,000 

24,000 

32.00 

1878 

116,000 

17,000 

17.17 

1888 

147,000 

31,000 

26.72 

1896 

181,000 

34,000 

23.12 

The  membership  figure  for  1896,  and  the  others  likewise,  does  not  include  the 
ministers  nor  the  probationers,  but  as  it  stands  it  shows  for  the  first  fifty  years  a 
net  gain  of  111,000,  or  2220  per  cent. 

The  showing  for  the  M.  E.  Church  by  decades  and  gain  per  cent  is  as  follows : 
The  membership  and  net  gain  by  decades  is  not  given  as  in  the  first  case  for  the 
reason  that  the  per  cent  is  taken  from  the  official  Year  Book  of  the  M.  E.  Church 
for  the  year  1884,  and  that  table  does  not  give  either  membership  or  net  gain. 
The  decade  for  1850  is  omitted,  as  that  was  the  time  of  "separation"  of  the 


694  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


Union,  7400;  or  a  total  of  373,699.  Eemembering  that  the 
parent  body  had  fifty  years  the  start  of  the  first  of  these  off- 
shoots, the  New  Connexion,  and  it  is  demonstrated  that  the 
Parental  system  of  Wesley  had  no  advantage  on  the  score  of 
success  over  the  Liberal  polities  of  the  other  branches.  In  the 
Bishops'  Address  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  made  to 
the  General  Conference  of  1896,  it  is  stated  that  the  net  gain 
in  membership  for  the  quadrennium,  including  probationers,  a 
method  of  recent  adoption  in  the  Canada  and  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  was  380,000,  giving  a  round  total  of  2,766,656.  This 
percentage  of  increase  is  a  fraction  less  than  sixteen.  It  is  a 
source  of  congratulation,  and  the  bishops  make  the  most  of  it. 
The  Methodist  Protestant  Church  for  the  same  quadrennium, 
1892-96,  shows  a  net  increase  of  members,  including  probationers, 
of  42,445,  in  a  grand  total,  not  including  ministers  and  preachers, 
on  the  assumption  that  the  grand  total  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  does  not  include  them,  of  183,716.  This  percentage 
of  increase  is  twenty-six  and  a  fraction,  or  about  sixty-five  per 
cent  of  the  per  cent  more  than  the  parent  body.  But  it  will  be 
claimed  that  on  the  theory  of  diminishing  returns  heretofore 
noticed,  and  questioned  as  applicable  to  Church  statistics,  how- 
Church  South  with  its  immense  loss,  and  the  gain  per  cent  for  the  decade  of  1890 
is  estimated. 


DECADES 

GAIN  PER  CENT 

1790 

1800 

12.60 

1810 

168.96 

1820 

48.87 

1830 

83.21 

1840 

68.38 

1850 

1860 

44.20 

1870 

37.44 

1880 

27.48 

1890 

34.41 

This  exhibits  for  its  first  fifty  years  a  per  cent  net  gain  of  2049.  Accuracy  is 
claimed  for  these  figures  only  so  far  as  they  go.  The  minutes  of  the  General  Con- 
ferences of  1892  and  189f>  of  the  M.  E.  Church  show  an  immense  gain  of  mem- 
bership, while  the  growth  of  membership  in  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  since  tbe 
Civil  War  is  also  immense  and  unprecedented  in  Methodism.  Those  who  apply 
the  law  of  diminishing  returns  to  populations  and  increase  will  also  claim  this 
comparison  by  per  cent  alone  to  be  unsatisfactory,  and  the  writer  does  not  demur 
to  any  exceptions  that  can  be  made  to  the  exhibit.  What  is  simply  claimed  is 
that  by  the  only  method  open  to  you,  that  of  per  cent  increase  or  decrease  by  dec- 
ades or  quadrenniums,  as  declared  in  the  running  text  of  this  History,  no  advan- 
tage on  the  score  of  growth  can  be  proven  for  the  Episcopal  system  as  such  over 
the  Liberal  system  as  such. 


COMPARISON  OF  GliOWTU  CONTINUED  095 


ever  it  may  be  proven  to  apply  to  material  agencies,  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  2,760,000  as  working  factors  will  secure  an 
increment  to  tally  with  the  increment  of  183,716.  Admitting  it 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  can  allow  a  full  difference  for  diminishing 
returns,  and  yet  show  a  larger  net  increase  of  members  than  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  same  is  found  true  as  to 
valuation  of  church  property.  In  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  1896,  ^109,641,191;  for  1895,  $107,960,374,  a  gain  for  the 
year  of  $1,680,817.  Assuming  the  same  relative  increase  (the 
figures  not  at  command)  for  the  previous  three  years,  and  a  net 
gain  is  shown  of  $6,720,109,  or  a  fraction  over  6^  per  cent,  in 
the  quadrennium.  In  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  in  1892, 
the  value  of  church  property  was  $3,551,359,  and  in  1896, 
$4,519,357,  or  a  net  gain  for  the  quadrennium  of  $967,998,  or  a 
fraction  less  than  twenty-five  per  cent.  Thus  the  disparity  is 
still  greater  in  this  feature  of  net  gain  as  6^  per  cent  is  to  twenty - 
five.  Applying  the  law  of  diminishing  returns,  and  the  Metho- 
dist Protestant  Church  still  occupies  a  conspicuous  vantage 
ground.  Now  in  the  light  of  these  cold  figures,  in  what  sense  is 
it  true  that  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  has  not  and  is  not 
succeeding?  But  this  exhibit  will  not  stay  the  repetition  of  the 
false  allegation  with  the  unfriendly,  nor  will  it  disabuse  the 
minds  of  some  within  the  organization  who  say:  The  Church  has 
not  done  as  much  as  it  ought;  it  is  still  a  minor  note  in  the  con- 
cert of  universal  Methodism;  they  cannot  cease  to  put  in  apposi- 
tion 200,000  with  2,500,000,  not  considering  by  such  a  criterion 
how  dismal  a  failure  is  Protestantism  itself  compared  with 
Komanism  in  numbers  and  wealth,  and  not  considering,  in  the 
face  of  the  figures  given,  that  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church 
is  succeeding  as  fully  as  it  is  possible  for  it  to  do  in  its  environ- 
ment. This  must  be  admitted,  however,  though  the  admission 
stands  only  in  proof  that  this  voting,  lay-representative  Metho- 
dism has  an  inherent  power  of  growth  and  self -perpetuation,  that 
the  net  increase  for  the  quadrennium  just  closed  is  much  larger 
than  the  average  of  previous  ones,  these  running  from  fifteen  to 
eighteen  per  cent,  —  that  of  1892-96  has  been  a  spurt  forward, 
the  impetus  of  which  it  is  hoped  will  tell  upon  the  future  of  its 
history. 

But  the  success  of  the  principles  for  which  the  Methodist 
Protestant  Church  stands  is  not  to  be  measured  by  any  such 
invidious  comparison  as  200,000  vs.  2,500,000,  confining  the  con- 


696 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


trast  to  the  one  dominating  American  Methodism.  Its  principal 
success  is  found,  as  heretofore  noticed,  in  the  power  of  its  princi- 
ples to  permeate  and  modify  the  organization  and  the  system 
from  which  it  sloughed,  —  the  Episcopal  Methodism  of  the  United 
States,  —  though  the  same  is  true  of  the  permeating  and  modify- 
ing power  of  the  Liberal  Methodisms  of  England  over  the  Wes- 
leyan  Conference.  It  has  been  found  how  the  pressure  of  these 
principles  under  the  demonstrated  success  of  its  corporate  forms 
has  compelled  the  Legal  Hundred  of  the  Wesleyan  Conference  to 
acquiesce  in  the  presence  of  an  equal  number  of  lay-delegates, 
though  not  lay -representatives,  in  its  annual  assembly.  And 
more,  how  that  Legal  Hundred  of  Wesley's  ideal  for  the  trans- 
mission of  power  consents  to  application  to  Parliament  for 
modifications  of  the  Deed  of  Declaration,  so  that  the  acts  of  the 
Wesleyan  Conference  shall  no  longer  require  the  formal  indorse- 
ment of  the  Legal  Hundred  for  such  authority.  It  is  an  easy- 
going sophism  that  makes  answer  that  the  concessions  made  to 
the  laity  are  in  the  regular  course  of  those  providential  changes 
which  have  always  marked  the  history  of  Methodism.  The  New 
Connexion,  the  Primitives,  and  the  Free  Methodist  churches  and 
their  congeners  were  simply  premature  movements;  they  could 
not  bide  the  proper  time,  and  so  were  excised  for  impatient  provo- 
cation of  that  providence,  the  signs  of  which  were  to  be  discerned 
by  those  only  who  stood  in  regular  succession  to  Wesley  and  his 
advisers.  The  answer  is  always  ready :  Principles  are  never  ex- 
pedient; they  are  intrinsically  either  right  or  wrong,  so  that  if 
lay-participation  was  wrong  in  Wesley^ s  day,  it  continues  to  be 
wrong;  a  mere  change  of  time  and  circumstances  cannot  make  it 
right.  It  is  an  unpalatable  truth  to  the  defenders  and  repre- 
sentatives of  Paternalism  and  exclusive  clerical  rule,  and  it  is 
demonstrable  that  in  England,  as  in  America,  those  who  have  held 
the  entail  of  power  are  surrendering  grudgingly;  the  crust  of 
that  concretion  of  oligarchic  power,  liberalism  in  Methodism  has 
pierced  and  injected  its  leaven  of  better  things,  and  the  English 
laity  will  not  let  it  rest  until  the  wrongs  of  the  Deed  of  Declara- 
tion are  righted  by  a  division  of  authority  such  as  self-respecting 
Englishmen  can  accept  as  a  finality.  The  animus  of  the  business 
as  it  is  working  among  them  is  exhibited  in  the  following  bit  of 
narrative  from  the  Northwestern  Christian  Advocate  (America)  for 
November,  1896 :  — 

"Dr.  Pope  presided  at  a  meeting  held  at  Central  Hall,  Manchester,  to 
congratulate  Dr.  Randies,  chairman  of  the  district,  on  his  election  to  the 


MODIFYING  POWER  OF  LIBERAL  METUOBISM  697 


presidency,  as  well  as  to  welcome  new  ministers  to  the  district.  In  replying 
the  president  said  that  the  Methodist  Church  has  the  finest  laity  possessed  by 
any  church  in  this  age.  After  reading  a  report  of  the  laudatory  remarks 
concerning  Wesleyan  laymen,  Mr.  Henry  Farr,  of  Wigan,  wrote  asking  the 
president  how  it  is  that  *  the  finest  laity  possessed  by  any  church  '  is  neither 
permitted  to  vote  by  ballot  in  the  quarterly  meeting  nor  to  nominate  church 
officers.  These  rights,  Mr.  Farr  pointed  out,  were  denied  by  the  express  vote 
of  last  conference,  as  they  had  been  denied  on  previous  occasions.  Dr. 
Randies  sent  a  courteous  reply,  in  which  he  supported  the  course  taken  by 
the  conference.  Commenting  on  it,  Mr.  Farr  writes :  '  So  it  is  evident  that 
although  he  says  we  are  the  finest  laity  in  the  world,  we  are  the  least  to  be 
trusted  of  any  laity  in  Christendom.'  " 

How  many  such  laymen  Henry  Farr  represents  cannot  be  accu- 
rately ascertained,  but  they  must  be  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
membership  of  this  class,  or  no  such  reforms  as  have  been  secured 
from  the  clerical  side  would  have  been  possible.  Add  these  to 
the  373,699  avowed  Methodist  reformers,  and  it  is  discovered 
that  the  liberal  element  of  British  Methodism  has  gained  the 
numerical  ascendency  after  more  than  a  hundred  years  of 
struggle. 

This  permeating  and  modifying  power  of  the  Methodist  Prot- 
estant Church  over  the  dominating  Episcopal  Methodisms  of 
America,  if  not  quite  so  manifest  and  susceptible  of  figure-proof, 
should  be  stimulating  to  the  zeal  of  every  liberal  Methodist. 
Putting  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  at  200,000,  for  the 
sake  of  round  numbers  in  estimates ;  and  the  Canada  Methodist 
Church,  with  its  equal  representation  in  the  General  Conference 
and  its  elective  Superintendency  quadrennially,  and  its  recent 
refusal  to  take  a  step  backward  and  adopt  the  term  "  Bishop  "  for 
that  officer,  as  urged  by  the  Bourbon  element  incorporated  at  the 
time  of  the  Union,  at  275,000;  and  the  smaller  liberal  branches 
of  American  Methodism  at  50,000  more;  and  a  very  low  estimate 
of  500,000  reform  Methodists  within  the  two  Episcopal  Metho- 
disms with  their  4,000,000  membership,  and  you  have  a  grand 
total  for  America  of  more  than  1,000,000  Methodist  Protestants 
virtually,  if  not  nominally.  The  writer  believes  that  a  million, 
instead  of  half  a  million,  would  be  nearer  the  truth  as  to  Metho- 
dist Protestants  in  sentiment  and  principle  within  the  pale  of 
the  two  Episcopal  Methodisms.  And  his  reasons  for  the  belief 
are  in  part  an  experience  of  conversations  with  the  laity  of  those 
Churches  extending  over  twenty  years  of  official  relation  to  his 
own  communion  and  a  travel  in  that  time  of  25,000  miles  among 
Conferences,   mingling  with  the  people  of  every  Methodist 


698  HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


patronymic  from  Michigan  to  Texas;  the  fact  of  such  representa- 
tive meetings  as  that  at  the  Eutaw  Street  church  in  the  late  winter 
of  1896,  in  Baltimore,  when  three  hundred  delegates,  from  more 
than  sixty  of  their  city  churches,  resolved  for  Methodist  Protes- 
tant principles;  and  at  the  great  representative  meeting  about 
the  same  time  in  the  Broad  and  Arch  Street  church,  Philadelphia, 
presided  over  by  Ex-Governor  Pattison,  from  the  entire  lay -mem- 
bership of  that  great  city;  and  of  like  meetings  in  Boston,  Cin- 
cinnati, and  other  centres  of  population  where  Methodism  is  rife ; 
and  from  the  advance  already  made  of  modifying  changes  in  the 
Episcopal  polity  under  this  pressure  from  its  leading  and  intelli- 
gent laity.  It  is  by  such  a  criterion,  buttressed  by  the  facts, 
that  the  success  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  is  to  be 
estimated. 

But  those  who  accept  and  further  these  modifying  changes 
seldom,  if  ever,  accord  credit  to  this  permeating  influence  of  an 
existing  and  prospering  liberal  Methodism.  The  fathers  and 
founders  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  w^hile  acknowledged 
right  in  the  abstract,  are  censured  as  men  before  their  time;  as 
impatient  of  Providence;  as  factious  and  restless  and  ambitious. 
The  answer  has  been  already  made :  Principles  are  never  expedi- 
ent; they  are  intrinsically  right  or  wrong.  The  writer  confesses 
to  complacency  when  he  can  enlist  such  a  representative  advocate 
of  the  old  regime  as  Rev.  Dr.  Buckley,  albeit  fair  and  open  to 
convictions  which  are  working  changes  in  his  status  on  kindred 
questions.  Let  his  argument  on  the  line  of  right  be  heard  as 
made  in  the  Christian  Advocate  editorially  of  August  27,  189G:  "If 
the  seating  of  women  by  the  highest  legislative  body  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  scriptural  and  wise,  women  have  been  robbed 
of  it  through  the  ages.  Methodism  has  deprived  them  of  it,  as 
it  deprived  the  male  membership  until  1872,  and  it  has  robbed 
them  of  it  since  that  time.  If  it  is  right,  it  was  always  right. 
If,  scripturally  considered,  it  is  wrong,  it  must  ever  be  so." 
Bravo,  Dr.  Buckley!  expediency  does  not  enter  into  it,  either 
women  delegates  or  lay-delegates.  If  either  is  right  now,  it  was 
always  right;  if  wrong,  then  always  wrong.  The  world's  Metho- 
dism is  coming  to  see  and  acknowledge  that  lay-delegation,  at 
least,  is  right,  and  if  so,  then  the  advocates  of  it  in  1820-30  were 
right,  and  those  who,  mole-like,  opposed  the  advocacy  to  the 
extent  of  excommunication  for  such  opinions'  sake,  were  wrong, 
and  it  is  time  that  the  confession  is  ingenuously  made  by  their 
historians. 


A  HUNDRED  TEARS  OF  STRUGGLE 


699 


But  a  hundred  years  of  struggle  has  not  brought  liberal  prin- 
ciples in  America  even  to  the  vantage  ground  occupied  by  them 
in  England.  The  Bourbon  element  still  protests.  In  tlie  last 
General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  when  tlie 
reference  as  an  overture  to  the  Annual  Conferences  of  an  equal 
delegation  of  laymen  in  that  body  was  on  its  passage,  a  clerical 
member  of  the  body  hailing  from  New  Jersey  said,  "We  will 
never  surrender  our  supremacy  in  the  General  Conference,"  and 
the  Associated  Press  despatches  of  the  day  tell  that  the  sentiment 
was  received  with  "applause."  The  reference,  however,  was  car- 
ried by  an  overwhelming  vote,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether 
three-fourths  of  the  ministers  will  accord  or  not.^  The  obstruct- 
ing Bourbonism  is  no  longer  a  dominating  one,  but  it  dies  hard. 
The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  which  came  to  an 
equal  delegation  of  laymen  in  its  General  Conference  after  1866 
by  a  bound,  still  has  a  large  element  of  this  kind.  Bishop 
M'Tyeire,  in  his  "History  of  Methodism,"  had  only  words  of 
approval  for  it,  but  Eev.  Dr.  Hoss,  thirty  years  after,  1896,  finds 
it  necessary  as  editor  of  the  Nashville  Christian  Advocate,  its 
official  organ,  to  tussle  with  these  Bourbons,  and  he  does  not 
mince  his  declarations :  "  Any  possibility  of  a  change  to  the  old 
system  is  not  even  to  be  dreamed  of.  The  man  who  could  muster 
up  the  hardihood  to  propose  it  would  simply  be  laughed  out  of 
countenance,  for  the  Church  has  come  to  see  that  what  was  at 
first  looked  upon  simply  as  a  matter  of  human  expediency  is  also 
really  a  matter  of  divine  authority.  The  New  Testament  teaches, 
as  clearly  as  it  teaches  anything,  to  coordinate  rights  of  the  laity 
in  the  government  of  the  Church.  The  notion,  so  zealously  main- 
tained by  some  of  our  fathers,  that  this  was  exclusively  a  clerical 
function,  is  quite  without  foundation.  The  New  Testament  doc- 
trine of  the  priesthood  of  the  people  wipes  out  a  good  deal  of 
surviving  Bomanism  from  the  creeds  and  polities  of  our  Protes- 
tant churches." 

What,  then,  is  to  be  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter?  The 
Methodist  world  is  mpving  —  moving  in  the  direction  of  personal 
Christian  rights  as  Christ  exalted  them  under  his  own  Headship. 
The  grave  error  of  the  Deed  of  Declaration,  and  the  graver  one 
of  the  Episcopal  organization  of  American  Methodism,  with  the 
legislative  and  judicial  and  executive  authority  in  the  hands  of 

1  The  negative  result  of  the  overtures  is  furnished  in  the  previous  chapter,  se- 
cured after  this  reference  was  written.  And  later  an  overwhelmii)g  affirmative 
result  under  the  n^enace  of  a  lay-revolution. 


700 


HISTOBY  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


the  ministry,  shall  eventually  be  corrected,  as  it  may  be  condoned. 
All  the  currents  of  history  are  in  proof  that  there  is  no  arrogance 
and  assumption  like  that  of  the  priestly,  as  it  flourishes  in  the 
ecclesiastical  domain  and  so  enlists  a  misinstructed  conscience  in 
extenuation.  Wesley  and  Asbury,  types  of  their  class,  believed 
that  this  authority  came  to  them  by  a  providential  assignment  — 
it  was  a  sacred  trust.  So  enamoured  of  it  were  they,  and  so 
schooled  had  they  become  in  its  efficiency,  and  so  satisfied  were 
they  of  their  own  prayerful  sincerity,  that  the  study  of  their  lives 
was  to  entail  it  in  copper-bottomed  and  steel-riveted  systems. 
They  believed  in  Victor  Hugo's  dictum  in  its  first  half:  "All 
civilization  begins  in  theocracy  "  (so  the  Pope  is  in  God's  place, 
and  so  hierarchs  of  every  degree  arrogate) ;  but  they  did  not 
believe  in  the  latter  half  of  his  dictum,  "  and  ends  in  democracy." 
To  grind  this  half  into  the  arrogants  has  cost  the  bloody  crusades 
of  centuries  in  the  civil  domain,  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  the 
inquisitions  and  excommunication,  both  Romish  and  Protestant; 
and  in  none  has  the  struggle  been  more  heroic  than  in  the  Metho- 
disms  on  either  side  of  the  ocean, —  a  struggle  to  correct  the 
fundamental  error  of  Wesley  and  Asbury  of  1784,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  America. 

The  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  in  the  correction  of  these 
fundamental  errors  calls  for  prognostications  as  to  the  steps  and 
methods  of  its  accomplishment.  In  the  Wesleyan  English  Con- 
ference Eeform  will  go  forward  until  equal  lay-participation 
shall  be  sanctioned  by  parliamentary  changes  in  tlie  Deed  of 
Declaration.  That  it  will  ever  come  to  lay-representation  is 
doubtful ;  clerical  control  in  the  minor  official  bodies  is  the  last 
ditch  of  the  oligarchic  polity,  and  will  not  be  surrendered  easily. 
It  may  be  in  a  generation  more  our  English  cousins  of  the  Metho- 
dist laity  will  so  upheave  the  clericals  that  the  selection  of  lay- 
delegates  shall  be  the  province  of  the  primary  assemblies  —  the 
societies  or  congregations  —  and  not  the  Quarterly  Conferences, 
which  are  so  largely  the  appointees  of  the  pastors  and  so  amen- 
able to  their  wishes  and  authority.  Wesley's  dictum,  "We  are 
no  republicans  and  never  intend  to  be,"  shall  be  finally  over- 
thrown, and  a  New  Testament  polity  of  personal  sovereignty  for 
every  Christian  believer  be  the  interpretation  of  republicanism. 
Then  may  come  Methodistic  organic  union  in  the  British  Islands, 
the  limited  territory  and  the  more  limited  numbers  making  it 
feasible,  as  was  the  union  of  Canada  Methodisms  for  the  same 
reasons.    Then  will  the  memory  of  Dr.  Whitehead  and  all  the 


PROGNOSTICATIONS  AS  TO  THE  METHODISM S  701 


leaders  of  liberal  opinions  in  the  several  branches  be  vindicated, 
and  English  Methodism  as  a  Christianity  in  earnest  go  forward 
to  greater  spiritual  triumphs,  while  no  less  revering  tlie  fathers 
and  founders.  Methodist  womanhood  will  be  recognized  as  born 
of  Susannah  Wesley  and  the  long  line  of  matronly  worthies,  who 
shall  not  preach  and  pray  only,  but  have  seats  witli  the  judges 
and  lend  their  pure  presence  in  its  legislative  halls.  Then  will 
it  be  no  longer  a  matter  of  moment  whether  emigrating  English 
Methodists  on  arriving  in  America  shall  be  taught  to  inquire  for 
"Bishop  Simpson's  Church,"  or  left  free  to  unite  with  that  form 
of  Methodism  they  may  find  most  convenient  or  adapted  to  their 
preferences. 

As  to  American  Methodisms,  these  forecasts  are  ventured.  In 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  lay-delegation,  even  though  de- 
feated by  the  present  reference  to  the  voting  Annual  Conferences 
of  the  preachers, —  there  is  voting  nowhere  else, —  it  will  not 
die,  and  an  equal  delegation  of  laymen  shall  take  their  seats  in 
the  General  Conference,  thus  putting  it  abreast  with  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  South,  since  1870.^  In  the  former  Church 
the  "  general  superintendency  "  shall  be  modified.  The  inevitable 
world-girdling  growth  of  this  wonderful  organization  shall  go  on, 
second  only  to  Eome  in  its  ideal  of  hierarchy,  with  its  equipment 
for  home  and  foreign  extension,  and  its  responsive  laity,  who 
still  "pray,  pay,  and  obey,"  as  in  Asbury's  time  and  his  suc- 
cessors, furnishing  the  sinews,  while  they  yet  wait,  hat  in  hand, 
at  the  doors  of  its  legislative  assembly  for  something  like  respect- 
able recognition,  as  worthy  to  share  in  it  and  help  dispense  their 
own  bounty.  The  bench  of  bishops  now  numbers  sixteen,  who 
follow  each  other  round  the  earth  that  the  fiction  of  a  "  general 
superintendency  "  may  be  preserved  under  the  iron-clad  restric- 
tion of  the  General  Conference  of  1808.  This  now  superfluous 
and  expensive  plan  must  sooner  or  later  result  in  the  districting 
of  the  bishops.    Official  leaders  now  demand  it.    Bishop  Tho- 

1  There  is  now,  November,  1898,  no  doubt  that  the  resubmission  of  the  equal 
lay-delegation  question  to  the  Annual  Conferences  by  the  General  Conference  of 
1896,  will  receive  a  three-fourths  vote  of  the  ministers.  This  sudden  reversal  of 
opinion  is  due  largely  without  question  to  the  menacing  attitude  of  the  laity,  in  a 
call  for  a  General  Convention  of  laymen  in  the  autumn  of  1898,  to  demand  their 
proper  recognition.  Rather  than  provoke  revolution  the  ministry  succumbs,  and 
there  is  now  a  moral  certainty  that  the  ensuing  General  Conference  of  VM)  will 
recognize  equal  delegation  in  that  body  for  1904.  Whether  the  Reform  will  stop 
with  this  remains  to  be  seen.  November  17,  1898,  official  notice  was  given  by  the 
laymen  that  their  General  Convention  was  recalled,  the  demand  having  been 
yielded. 


702 


mSTORT  OF  METHODIST  BEFOBM 


burn,  in  the  September,  1895,  number  of  the  Methodist  Review^ 
declares  that  "the  attempt  to  maintain  the  present  systemless 
and  outgrown  policy  must  be  abandoned."  "  It  seems  ridiculous," 
he  says,  "to  require  sixteen  men  here  in  the  United  States  to 
interchange  their  fields  of  labor  annually;  .  .  .  it  is  a  waste  of 
time,  strength,  and  money,  and  that  if  it  is  unwise  for  this 
country,  it  is  much  more  so  applied  to  mission  fields."  The 
Western  Cliristian  Advocate  approves,  and  declares  that  it  would 
be  easier  to  employ  to  great  advantage  sixty  bishops  than  it  is 
now  to  provide  for  sixteen.  And  this  is  the  inevitable  trend. 
The  residential  location  of  the  present  bench  is  a  step  in  the 
same  direction.  It  may  take  a  generation  yet  to  accomplish  it, 
and  with  it  will  come  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  presiding  elder- 
ship; they  will  be  superseded  by  resident  bishops  sufficient  in 
number  to  know  the  work  and  the  men,  and  with  it  will  come  an 
immense  saving  pecuniarily  to  the  churches  in  the  cost  of  admin- 
istration. The  reform  will  go  onward  to  face  the  most  difficult 
feature  of  change  the  laity  will  demand :  delegation  in  the  Annual 
Conferences  equal  to  the  ministry.  The  gigantic  obstacle  to  this 
change  has  already  been  suggested  in  these  x^ages :  the  old  system 
has  grown  vast  aggregations  of  preachers  in  Annual  Conferences. 
To  double  the  number  would  make  them  utterly  unwieldy;  to 
divide  them,  fertile  of  trouble;  so  that  equal  lay-delegation  in  the 
Annual  Conferences  will  probably  not  be  within  the  years  of 
this  generation. 

These  changes,  when  secured,  will  not  greatly  modify  the 
system  practically;  its  essential  genius  will  be  differenced  widely 
from  that  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  and  however  pos- 
sible it  would  have  been  for  the  Reformers  of  sixty  or  seventy 
years  ago  to  have  accepted  these  changes,  recalling  the  fact  that 
two  generations  have  been  born  since  the  initial  movement,  and 
the  existing  membership  of  the  new  Church  in  quite  a  fair  pro- 
portion have  had  not  fathers  only,  but  grandfathers  and  mothers, 
from  whom  they  have  derived  their  Methodist  Reform  principles; 
and  just  as  such  an  education,  by  a  species  of  heredity,  keeps 
thousands  who  are  like-minded  within  the  fold  of  the  parent 
Church,  a  kindred  education  makes  it  impossible  for  these  de- 
scendants of  worthy  sires  to  surrender  the  Church  of  their  pro- 
genitors. The  Church  has  demonstrated  its  right  to  exist;  it 
has,  step  by  step,  won  for  itself  all  the  appointments  of  a  well- 
organized  ecclesiasticism :  church  property  commensurate  with 
its  numbers  and  ability,  colleges  and  seminaries  for  its  young 


TEE  NEW  CllUIiCn  MUST  BE  PERPETUATED  t03 

people  and  tlieologucs,  a  well-planted  foreign  missionary  work 
—  one  of  the  essentials  of  a  Church  claiming  continued  existence 
under  the  Christly  standard;  a  home  missionary  and  Church 
Extension  work;  and,  to  cap  all,  a  growth  in  numbers  and  ability 
such  as  would  make  its  absorption  into  any  other  Methodism  a 
flat  contradiction  of  a  manifest  destiny  and  a  providential  mission 
as  a  Church.  It  is  of  age,  and  long  past  the  tutelage  of  its 
parent.  It  cannot  listen  longer  to  proposals  of  absorption, —  and 
it  is  confessed  that  the  dominant  Methodism  cannot  well  offer 
anything  else, —  so  that  any  within  its  ministry  who  hanker  after 
such  absorption  should  in  loyalty  to  their  changed  opinions,  and 
in  deference  to  the  great  body  of  the  organization,  forbear  such 
agitation  within  its  portals.  If  they  have  outgrown  the  limita- 
tions of  a  200,000  Church  (and  this  conceit  is  at  the  bottom  of 
most  individual  defections  from  which  this  Church  suffers),  let 
them  quietly  withdraw  and  find  the  boosting  of  better  pay  and 
a  wider  field  of  usefulness  "  (another  of  the  conceits  that  lure 
preachers  from  its  ranks)  in  a  2,500,000  Church;  for  to  this  type 
of  mind  there  is  nothing  so  attractive  as  a  2,500,000  Church, 
except  one  of  4,000,000  or  5,000,000.  Even  if  such  a  scheme  of 
so-called  union,  i.e.  absorption,  should  be  made  so  plausible  that 
a  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  should 
favorably  entertain  it,  the  overt  attempt  would  meet  the  autono- 
mous nature  of  the  churches,  and  no  other  result,  the  writer  pre- 
dicts, would  ensue  but  segregation  and  disintegration  in  indepen- 
dencies —  the  corporate  dissolution  of  the  once  fair  heritage. 

But  no  such  untoward  combination  shall  mar  the  future  history 
of  this  Church;  it  is  reduced  to  a  moral  certainty.  There  is  a 
stronger  probability  that,  tired  out  with  fruitless  appeal,  the 
laity,  and,  weary  of  snubbing  and  rebuke,  that  growing  class  of 
its  younger  ministry  who  are  fretting  under  the  unamenable 
authority  of  the  Eldership  and  Bishopric,  will  withdraw,  some 
of  both  classes,  and  thus  accretions  occur  to  the  Methodist  Protes- 
tant Church  as  it  continues  to  gain  a  wider  and  more  respecting 
recognition  from  the  sisterhood  of  Protestantism.  The  writer  is 
not  praying  for  such  a  result,  nor  are  his  coadjutors,  and  he  would 
even  apologize  for  the  mention  of  it,  if  that  mention  could  have 
any  such  trend.  Under  its  present  loyal  leadership,  and  a  young 
ministry  in  large  part  born  within  the  fold,  the  Keform  Church 
will  go  forward  and  do  its  appointed  work;  it  will  live  and 
prosper ;  it  will  take  its  proper  rank.  But  to  this  end  the  educa- 
tional process  within,  already  intimated,  must  not  be  neglected. 


704 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  BEFORM 


Its  ministry  must  study  fully  its  genius,  be  quite  amenable  to  its 
elective  authority,  and  develop  an  individual  character  which  will 
make  every  pastor  a  forceful  exponent  of  a  liberal  Methodistic 
Christianity;  and  its  laity  must  learn  that  parity  of  rights  does 
not  mean  a  domineering  spirit;  the  lay  bishop  can  no  more  be 
tolerated  than  the  clerical  bishop;  they,  too,  must  study  the 
genius  of  its  polity,  and  not  forget  the  self-abnegation  of  the 
ministers  who  bought  by  their  personal  suffering  these  equal 
rights  for  them.  They  must  not  permit  their  average  liberality 
to  fall  below  the  standard  of  their  brethren  in  the  Episcopal 
Methodisms;  broad  sympathy,  generous  support,  and  hearty 
cooperation  must  characterize  their  conduct  toward  a  ministry 
that  is  still  more  largely  than  themselves  exhibiting  the  self- 
sacrificing  spirit.  The  hope  of  the  future  is  that  into  these 
things  they  will  grow,  and  thus  insure  the  fulfilment  of  the 
favorable  prognostications  here  made  for  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church. 

Is  it  the  purpose,  then,  of  this  Church  to  stand  aloof  from  its 
sister  Methodisms?  By  no  means.  No  one  can  be  a  stronger 
advocate  of  cooperation  than  the  writer,  but  it  can  be  only  through 
the  operation  of  a  Federation  that  shall  be  mutually  respecting 
and  free  from  denominational  arrogance.  Said  Bishop  Galloway 
in  a  Boston  Methodist  preachers'  meeting,  declarative  of  the 
position  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  and  in  line 
with  a  recent  utterance  of  his  brother  Bishop,  Fitzgerald's, 
Federation,  Fraternity,  and  Forgiveness:  ''One  Federation  for 
all  the  sons  of  Wesley."  It  is  the  only  thing  possible  to  the 
divisions  of  Methodism,  as  it  is  the  only  thing  possible  to  the 
divisions  of  Protestantism.  Dr.  Buckley  indorsed  the  same 
proposition  in  the  iVew  York  Christian  Advocate  of  September  3, 
1896,  though  perhaps  unwittingly  as  to  the  present  application: 
"  The  unity  of  outward  ecclesiastical  forms  has  been  well  described 
as  hollow,  unity  of  inward  and  spiritual  life  as  real.  The  only 
unity  attainable  in  this  world  is  substantial  spiritual  unity  in 
circumstantial  variety  of  form  and  letter." 

Federation  does  propose  and  promise  a  little  more.  What  the 
■writer  means,  and  he  takes  it  these  bishops  of  a  1, 500, 000  Church, 
having  an  unprecedented  growth  since  the  Civil  War,  also  sub- 
stantially mean,  is  some  such  agreement  through  the  respective 
General  Conferences  of  these  two  dominating  Churches  (the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church  with  its  200,000  would  ask  to  be 
recognized  also)  as  the  appointment  of  Commissioners,  an  equal 


FEDERATION  ALONE  FEASIBLE 


705 


number  of  clerical  and  laical  members,  who  sliall  be  invested 
with  power  to  formulate  the  terms  and  conditions  of  the  Federa- 
tion, which  are  to  be  such  as  these,  in  part  if  not  in  whole.  An 
authoritative  proclamation  that  tliese  Methodisms  are  no  longer 
in  home  extension  work  to  build  altar  against  altar,  avoiding  such 
conflict  in  the  larger  cities  by  respecting  the  principle  in  neigh- 
borhoods, and  avoiding  it  in  the  smaller  towns  and  villages  by 
respecting  preemption  and  preoccupation,  and  the  superior  facili- 
ties which  the  one  form  of  Methodism  in  this  covenant  shall 
possess  over  the  other.  What  a  vast  saving  there  would  be  in 
such  an  arrangement  for  home  extension  of  the  common  cause  of 
Wesleyan  doctrine  and  methods.  It  might  even  be  pressed  to 
the  extent  of  union  in  not  a  few  places  where  now  two  or  three 
Methodist  churches  are  struggling  to  live  and  are  in  each  other's 
way ;  though  this  union  would  have  to  be  brought  about  by  strict 
local  agreement  under  higher  official  sanction. 

In  the  foreign  field  there  ought  to  be  even  less  difficulty  in 
coming  to  such  an  agreement.  It  is  the  perplexity  and  distrac- 
tion of  the  heathen  to-day,  specially  in  Japan  and  China,  where 
the  several  Methodisms  are  operating  often  side  by  side,  to  under- 
stand these  differences  of  structural  ideal.  Where  these  Metho- 
dist missions  are  established,  and  in  all  the  unoccupied  territory, 
let  Methodism  push  its  evangelization  under  a  common  name, 
either  the  "  Methodist "  or  the  "  United  Methodist ''  Church,  and 
let  their  missionaries,  when  they  touch  a  foreign  shore,  drop  at 
once  their  denominational  name  and  cease  to  be  sectarian.  Let 
the  foreign  missionary  fund  be  a  common  one,  and  each  Metho- 
dism vie  with  the  other  for  liberal  things  under  the  impulse  of 
this  purely  Christlike  venture  for  the  extension  of  his  kingdom. 
There  need  be  nothing  insuperable  in  such  a  method.  Let  the 
formulation  of  a  common  hymn  book  be  no  longer  delayed,  and 
let  it  be  titled,  "The  Methodist  Hymn  Book,"  for  universal 
adoption  by  all  its  branches  and  all  over  the  world.  It  ought  to 
be  the  easiest  of  the  proposals  not  later  than  the  ensuing  Ecu- 
menical Conference  of  the  world's  Methodisms. 

This  is  a  scant  outline  of  the  salient  feature  of  a  Methodist 
Federation.^    For  this  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  is  ready 

1  Commissioners  on  Federation  were  appointed  by  the  respective  General  Con- 
ferences of  the  two  great  Methodisms,  North  and  South,  in  1894  and  1896  respec- 
tively. These  Commissioners  met  in  Washington,  D.  C,  January  7,  8,  1898 ;  and 
after  careful  deliberation  they  reaffirmed  the  so-called  Cape  May,  N.  J.,  agree- 
ment as  to  the  legal  status  and  property  rights  of  the  two  Churches,  and  then 
passed  the  following  resolutions  as  a  basis  of  Federation  between  the  two.  Tho 
VOL.  n  — 2  z 


706 


HISTORY  OF  METHODIST  REFORM 


to-day,  if  the  brethren  of  the  other  communions  will  condescend 
to  recognize  it  as  a  factor  in  such  a  compact.  The  one  bar  to  it, 
even  after  resolutionary  consent  should  have  been  given,  is  that 
"  ecclesiastical  finesse  "  heretofore  traced  as  the  fly  in  the  oint- 
ment of  every  past  attempt  to  bring  together  brethren  of  a  com- 
mon faith.  That  such  a  movement  must  be  initiated  by  the 
dominating  Methodism  goes  for  the  saying.  AVill  it  ever  be  done 
by  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  with  the  Church  South  and 
the  Protestant  Church  thus  committed  to  it?  The  writer  sadly 
confesses  he  sees  little  probability  of  it,  reasonable  as  it  is,  and  de- 
manded by  the  highest  considerations  of  Christly  love  and  loyalty. 
That  great  and  glorious  Church  has  never  yet  in  its  history  made 
a  single  sign  of  a  self-abnegating  recognition  of  its  sister  Metho- 
disms  in  the  direction  named,  nor  even  of  cordial  approval  of 

resolutions  in  the  full  text  may  be  found  in  the  Nev)  York  Christian  Advocate  of 
January  20,  1898,  and  elsewhere.  For  the  purpose  of  this  foot-note,  they  are 
scaled  and  condensed  in  verbiage :  and  it  will  be  discovered  by  those  who  take 
the  pains  to  make  careful  comparison  that  all  the  points  for  a  Federation,  as  out- 
lined by  the  writer,  are  included  ^^ith  others  of  less  vital  importance,  sho-^sing 
how  fully  the  ingenuous  mind  of  American  Methodism  is  agreed  as  to  what  Chris- 
tian comity  demands  should  be  done.  The  first  resolution  recommends  a  com- 
mon catechism,  hymn  book,  and  order  of  public  worship  for  both  Churches.  The 
second,  to  recognize  and  regulate  by  legal  provisions  the  Epworth  Leagues  of 
the  respective  Churches.  The  third,  a  joint  administration  of  their  publishing 
interests  in  China  and  Japan.  The  fourth,  cooperative  administration  in  Foreign 
Missionary  work  for  lessening  the  expenditure  of  funds  in  the  prosecution  of  this 
work,  the  plan  to  be  left  to  the  two  General  Conferences.  The  fifth,  that  new 
church  work  shall  not  be  established  where  either  Church  is  organized,  without 
the  consent  of  the  bishop  having  jurisdiction.  The  sixth,  that  the  American 
University  at  Washington,  D.  C,  be  mutually  recognized  and  supported,  with 
special  contributions,  during  the  closing  year  of  the  old  century  and  the  first  of 
the  new.  A  final  recommendation  is,  that  the  General  Conferences  of  the  two 
Churches  arrange  for  the  mutual  recognition  of  ministers  without  loss  of  orders 
or  standing.  This  plan  of  Federation  now  goes  to  the  ensuing  General  Confer- 
ences of  these  Churches  in  1898  and  1900,  to  be  approved  probably  as  it  stands  by 
the  Church,  South,  in  1898,  but  open  to  doubt  and  amendment  by  the  Church, 
North,  in  1900.  Its  final  adoption  must  thus  be  delayed  long  enough  for  the 
General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  meeting  sj-nchronously 
with  that  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  May,  1900,  to  consider  the  plan, 
and  if  favored,  at  least  in  its  essential  features,  to  seek  recognition  under  it. 
There  is  every  fraternal  and  Christian  reason  that  these  features  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  world's  Methodism,  at  the  ensuing  third  Pan-Methodist  Conference 
in  London  in  11X)1,  should  it  be  called  by  the  committee  authorized  to  do  so.  One 
hymn  book  and  one  catechism  and  one  order  of  ser\'ice  the  world  over  would, 
indeed,  be  a  bond  of  union  and  fraternity. 

Later,  May,  1898,  the  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South,  in  Balti- 
more, indorsed  the  action  of  its  Commissioners  as  to  the  features  of  Federation. 
It  now  goes  to  the  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church  in  1900,  to  be  amended, 
accepted,  or  rejected. 


THE  FEDERATION  SCHEME  AS  PROPOSED 


707 


aay  of  the  interdenominational  and  unsectarian  movements  which 
have  from  time  to  time  encouraged  tlie  Christian  worhl  that  tliere 
may  come  in  any  near  future  a  Federation  for  Trotestantism. 
Like  Komanism,  it  stfinds  ready  to  absorb  any  class  of  organized 
Christians  coming  within  the  attractive  range  of  its  multi-mil- 
lions and  its  immense  property  interests,  and  this  alone.  The 
writer  begs  pardon  of  his  brethren  if  this  indictment  is  too 
strongly  worded,  and  he  is  open  to  conviction,  if  its  positions  can 
be  successfully  controverted.  "  Let  prayer  be  made  continually  " 
that  some  such  Federation  as  the  writer  has  presumed  to  outline 
may  yet,  in  the  good  providence  of  God,  be  consummated,  at  least 
for  the  Methodisms  of  the  world,  and  then  "  Ephraim  shall  not 
vex  Judah,  and  Judah  shall  not  vex  Ephraim." 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Abbott,  Benjamin,  i.  197. 
Allen,  B.,  i.  323. 
Allen,  Richard,  i.  18. 
Amos,  J.  J.,  ii.  291,  509. 
Andrews,  Bishop,  i.  201 ;  ii.  13,  38,  288, 
323. 

Andrews,  Rev.  N.  G.,  ii.  644. 
"Anthroposophy,"  ii.  41. 
Antliff ,  W.,  i.  136. 

Appleget,  Rev.  T.  B.,  ii.  618.  651,  654, 
696. 

Armfield,  Joseph,  ii.  653. 

Arminian  Magazine,  i.  62. 

Armstrong,  Dr.  James  L.,  ii,  501,  502. 

Arthur,  T.  S.,  ii.  283. 

Asbury,  Francis,  i.  3,  8,  45,  68,  71,  79, 
101,  113,  127,  181,  184-248,  265,  274, 
287-301,  305,  311,  320-327,  340,  341, 
364-382,  386-408,  410-418,  426-434,  436- 
440,  446,  457-459,  465-472,  478-499,  502- 
508,  511,  516-520, 524-541,  543,  544,  569, 
572-574 ;  ii.  176-178,  700,  701. 

Atkinson,  i.  330. 

Atkinson,  Farmer  — ,  i.  137,  297. 

Atley,  John,  i.  65,  103. 

Atmore,  i.  73,  114,  157. 

Atwood,  Anthony,  i.  59. 

Ault,  Mrs.,  i.  148. 

Averell,  Adam,  i.  149,  150. 

Avery,  Charles,  ii.  120,  203,  269,  403, 
404. 

B 

Bagley,  Rev.  Daniel,  ii.  352,  357. 

Bailey,  Dr.  Gamaliel,  ii.  282,  283. 

Baker,  Mrs.  A.  C,  ii.  633. 

Baker,  James  J.,  i.  182. 

Balch,  S.  G.,  ii.  225. 

Ball,  R.  H.,  ii.  360,  415. 

Bangs,  i.  31ii-315,  331,  357,  490. 

Bangs,  Nathan,  i.  384,  521,  555;  ii.  5, 

52-54,  159,  180,  315. 
Barber,  i.  73. 
Barber,  Thomas,  i.  478. 
Barker,  Joseph,  i.  120. 


Barnes,  Rev.  William,  ii.  287. 

Barr,  Rev,  George  R.,  ii.  662. 

Barratt  Chapel,  i.  143,  274, 

"  Bartimeus,"  ii.  75,  94,  302. 

Bascom,  Henry  B,,  i,  464  ,  601-607;  ii, 

40,  43,  81,  97-100,  110,  157,  283,  288, 

386, 

Bassett,  A,  H.,  ii,  76,  243,  324,  413,  428, 

437,  568,  614,  630. 
Batchelor,  L.  W.,  ii.  468. 
Bates,  Rev.  Dr.  Daniel  W.,  ii.  668, 

669. 

Bates,  Dr.  L.  W.,  ii.  311,  430, 565,  660. 
Beauchamp,  H,,  i.  535. 
Beauchamp,  W.,  ii.  57. 
Bellamy,  Dr.  J.  F.,  ii,  342. 
Benezet,  Anthony,  i.  47. 
Bennet,  i.  28,  29,  30. 
Bennet,  Grace,  i.  31, 
Benson,  Joseph,  i.  45,  56,  100. 
Berrien,  J.C.,  i.  581,  583. 
Bibb,  Hon.  Beniah  S.,  ii.  609. 
Bingham,  i.  375. 
Bingley  Church,  i.  63. 
Birstal,  i,  59,  61,  65. 
Bishop,  Truman,  i.  482;  ii.  70,  200. 
Black,  W,,  i,  61,  498,  521,  534. 
Blair,  Andrew,  i.  151. 
Boardman,  Richard,  i.  43,  183,  187,  196, 
220, 

Boehm,  Henry,  i.  200,  359,  529,  545. 

Boehm,  Martin,  i.  200. 

Bohler,  Peter,  i.  13,  24. 

Bond,  Dr.,  i.  512;  ii.  52,  62,  91,  94,  114. 
117,  119,  120,  127,  132,  141,  144,  160, 
170,  171,  175,  192,  230-233,  320,  329, 
349,  379. 

Bond,  John  Wesley,  i.  198,  532,  633. 
Bonham,  Hezekiah,  i,  188. 
Booth,  Ballington,  i.  37. 
Booth,  William,  i,  36. 
Bosanquet,  Miss,  i.  45,  51. 
Bourne,  Hugh,  i,  133-135. 
Bourne,  James,  i,  135. 
Bowden,  Rev.  William,  ii.  196,  580. 
Bowen,  T,,  i.  378. 


709 


710 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Boyd,  Rev.  Redmond,  ii.  644. 

Brackenbury,  i,  103. 

Bradburn,  Joseph,  i.  106. 

Bradburn,  S.,  i.  117,  364. 

Bradford,  J.,  i.  114. 

Bradford,  Samuel,  i.  49. 

Bramwell,  William,  i.  83. 

Brazier,  Mr.,  i.  3^)0. 

Brewer,  Aaron  G.,  ii.  276. 

Briscoe,  Thomas,  i.  59. 

Bristol,  i.  16,  24,  36,  37,  49,  59. 

Britt,  Pliny,  i.  522. 

Brittain,  Miss.,  i.  585,  586,  593,  594. 

Broadhead,  J.,  i.  546. 

Bromley,  i.  170. 

Brown,  Francis,  ii.  293,  662. 

Brown,  Dr.  George,  ii.  48,  77,  98,  141, 

162,  168,  198,  199,  227,  255,  310,  414, 

415,  460,  519-521. 
Brown,  Miss  M.,  i.  595. 
Brownlow,  *'  Parson,"  ii.  323. 
Brownson,  H.,  ii.  346. 
Bruce,  P.,  i.  238,  378;  ii.  24. 
Bryenton,  William,  ii.  222. 
Buckley,  Dr.,  i.  421 ;  ii.  93, 194,  196, 687, 

698. 

Buell,  Fayette  R.,  ii.  470. 
Bulmer,  i.  127. 

Bunting,  Jabez,  i.  122,  128,  141,  154, 
159. 

Burdsal,  i.  170. 

Burgess,  Benedict,  ii.  203. 

Burns,  Rev.  John,  ii.  602. 

Burke,  Rev.  William,  ii.  281. 

Burnet,  i.  35. 

Burton,  i.  132. 

Butterworth,  i.  126. 

Button,  Hon.  Charles  W.,  ii.  664,  665. 

Byckerman,  Rev.  E.  B.,  ii.  593. 

C 

Capel,  Britton,  ii.  239. 

Capers,  William,  i.  157,  550;  ii.  5,  7,  11, 

59,  166. 
Cartright,  Peter,  ii.  285. 
Carvosso,;  William,  i.  132. 
Cassel,  Leonard,  i.  551. 
Chappell,  Anna  G.,  ii.  292,  293. 
Cheesman,  Thomas,  ii.  298. 
Chew,  i.  346. 
Chipman,  Anna,  ii.  238. 
Chipman,  Harriet,  ii.  238. 
"  Cincinnatus,"  ii.  44,  76. 
Cinneck,  John,  i.  26,  51,  74. 
Clancy,  George,  ii.  362,  414. 
Claney,  Mrs.  J.  H.,  ii.  588. 
Clark,  Dr.  Alexander,  ii.  543,  581,  582. 


Clark,  Dr.,  ii.  159. 
Clarke,  Adam,  i.  141,  158. 
Clarke,  John,  ii.  292,  299,  329. 
Clawson,  Samuel,  ii.  600. 
Cloud,  i.  34(j. 
Clowes,  i.  134,  135. 
Coates,  Mrs.  John,  ii.  551. 
Cochran,  Rev.  J.,  ii.  286. 
Cochrane,  S.,  i.  248. 

Coke,  Dr.  Thomas,  i.  1,  6,  7,  43,  51-64, 
68-78,  80,  84,  85,  87,  91,  100,  101,  107, 
109, 112-117, 124-128, 131,  142-149,  216, 
241,  244,  252-265,  267-298,  301,  308-320, 
324-332,  334-339,  363-365,  382-385,  387- 
414,  422,  423,  427-431,  467-470,  479,  480, 
4^^91,  493,  501,  504-506,  550, 551, 
570-572;  ii.  181-184,  186-190. 

Cokesbury,  i.  292, 367. 

Cokesbury  College,  i.  320,  352,  378, 
477. 

Colbert.  W.,  i.  417,  499,  546. 
Cold  well,  Pvev.  J.  G.,  ii.  523. 
Cole,  L.,  i.  209. 
Colhouer,  ii.  362. 
Collier,  Ralph,  ii.  682. 
Collier,  Dr.  William,  ii.  303,  603,  604, 
626. 

Collins,  John  A.,  ii.  217. 
Compton,  W.,  ii.  85,  86. 
Conference,  the  first,  i.  28. 
Connaway,  C,  i.  378. 
Constable,  J.,  ii.  120. 
Cook,  v.,  i.  546. 

Cooper,  E.,  i.  91,  301,  375,  498,  510,  515 

ii.  5,  42. 
Cooper,  John,  i.  465. 
Coradine,  W.  H.,  i.  163. 
Corcoran,  W.  W.,  i.  133. 
Cosby,  L.  F.,  ii.  292,  601,  602. 
Coughlin,  i.  142. 

Coulbourn,  Rev.  Thomas  E.,  ii.  669 
678. 

Covel,  James,  ii.  243. 

Cowan,  Rev.  Dr.  James  F.,  ii.  693. 

Cowl,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  ii.  367,  680. 

Cownley,  i.  73. 

Cox,  Dr.  S.  K.,  ii.  417,  418. 

Cox,  Melville  B.,  ii.  231. 

Cox,  P.,  i.  230. 

Crabb,  James,  i.  59. 

Creighton,  J.,  i.  258. 

Crenshaw,  T.,  i.  386. 

Cromwell,  J.  O.,  i.  378. 

Crook,  John,  i.  91. 

Crooks,  Dr.,  ii.  490. 

Crowther,  Jonathan,  i.  113,  352. 

Cryder.  M.,  i.  248. 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


711 


D 

D'Aubigne,  i.  2. 

Davies,  Daniel,  ii.  302,  335. 

Davis,  Rev.  Allen  G.,  ii.  ()27. 

Davis,  Gideon,  ii.  33,  41,  70,  81. 

Davis,  Stephen,  i.  431. 

Dawson,  "William,  i.  129. 

Deacon,  Samuel,  i.  20. 

Declaration,  deed  of,  i.  36,  62,  79,  98,  99, 

102,  130,  139,  538. 
Deems,  Dr.  Charles  F.,  ii.  468. 
Deford,  J.  H.,  ii.  346. 
Dempster,  James,  i.  202. 
Denny,  John,  i.  379. 
Devany,  ii.  72-74. 
Dewy,  T.,  i.  546. 

Dickins,  John,  i.  203,  210,  220,  222-224, 

236,  247  ,  269,  272,  273,  276,  287  ,  300, 

373,  374  ,  378,  432,  438,  455,  498,  559; 

ii.  24,  187. 
Dickinson,  Pearl,  i.  83. 
Dickson,  John,  ii.  225. 
Dodson,  Jeremiah,  ii.  425. 
Doniphan,  Alexander,  ii.  374. 
Dorsey,  Dennis  B.,  ii.  104-107,  124,  146, 

147,  197,  198,  203,  248,  416,  417,  439. 
Dorsey,  Dennis  B.,  Jr.,  ii.  417,  458. 
Dougharty,  G.,  i.  544. 
Dow,  Lorenzo,  i.  132,  465,  479,  482,  546 ; 

ii.  510. 
Downes,  i.  28. 
Drean,  Emily  H.,  ii.  30. 
Drew,  Samuel,  i.  63,  158,  382,  384. 
Drinkhouse,  Edward  J.,  ii.  470, 570,  637, 

638,  643,  656-658. 
Dromgoole,  i.  203,  208,  237,  283;  ii. 

212. 

Duggan,  Dr.  B.  F.,  ii.  680. 
Dulany,  W.  J.  C,  ii.  535. 
Dunn,  Samuel,  i.  168-171. 
Dunwody,  S.,  1.  549. 

E 

Early,  John,  ii.  163,  549. 

Easter,  John,  ii.  23. 

Eels,  William,  i.  65. 

Eliason,  John,  ii.  288. 

Ellis,  Rev.  J.  P.,  ii.  652. 

Ellis,  R.,  i.  209,  534. 

Embury,  Philip,  i.  175,  176, 181,  182. 

Emory,  John,  i.  141,  142,  353,  358-360, 
363,  384,  385,  401,  402,  407,  521,  534, 
553-555;  ii.  6,  13,  14,  50,  57,  60,  136, 
155-157,  167,  170,  173,  180-182. 

Emory,  Robert,  ii.  247. 

Entwistle,  i.  83,  100,  101. 

"Erasmus,"  ii.  230. 


Everett,  James,  i.  168,  171,  378. 
Everett,  Joseph,  i.  239. 

F 

Farr,  Henry,  ii.  697. 
Fetter  Lane,  i.  23,  25,  33,  35. 
Field,  Benton,  ii.  85. 
Findley,  ii.  162. 
Finney,  Dr.,  ii.  268. 
Fisk,  Wilbur,  ii.  165,  302. 
Fletcher,  John,  i.  35,  42,  50,  51,  66,  78. 
Flood,  Rev.  Jonathan,  ii.  597. 
Flood,  Rev.  Jonathan  M.,  ii.  597,  598. 
Flood,  San  ford  M.,  ii.  597. 
Fluvanna  Conference,  i.  301. 
Ford,  i.  549. 

Forrest,  J.,  i.  207 ;  ii.  102,  237,  329. 
Foster,  Bishop,  ii.  622. 
Franks,  Samuel,  i.  49. 
French,  John,  ii.  54,  73,  227,  247, 252,  268, 
315. 

Fry,  Elizabeth,  i.  123. 

G 

Garrettson,  F.,  i.  203,  207,  312-317,  378, 

379,  431,  510;  ii.  22,  112. 
Garrison  Forest  Church,  i.  268. 
Gassaway,  W.,  i.  545. 
Gatch,  Philip,  i.  188,  196,  215,  216,  237, 

545;  ii.  24. 
Gay,  James,  ii.  347. 

George,  i.  171,  524,  534,  544;  ii.  2,  3,  5, 

8,11,  12,  22,  144. 
Gephart,  John,  ii.  136. 
Gibson,  Dr.  Alexander,  ii.  567. 
Gilbert,  i.  142. 
Gilbert,  G.,  i.  210,  318. 
Gilbreath,  Joseph,  ii.  237. 
Gilbreath,  William,  ii.  237. 
Gildea,  Daniel,  ii.  197. 
Gill,  W.,  i.  209,  375. 
Gillespie,  W.  K.,  ii.  652. 
Gladstone,  i.  463. 
Glendenning,  i.  237,  245. 
Gough,  H.  D.,  i.  202,  378,  379,  431,  502; 

ii.  22. 
Graham,  i.  152. 

Gray,  Rev.  Alson,  ii.  238,  507,  594,  595. 
Green,  ii.  112. 

Green,  Dr.  J.  C,  ii.  141,  142. 

Green,  L.,  i.  370. 

Greenwood,  William  S.,  ii.  627. 

Grenade,  i.  497. 

Griffith,  i.  168,  170,  171. 

Griffith,  Alfred,  ii.  47,  48. 

Grindrod,  i.  154. 

Grove,  Rev.  A.  G.,  ii.  630. 


712 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Gruber,  J.,  i.  545. 
Guirey,  William,  i.  Ill,  112,  461. 
Guthrie,  E.  M.,  i.  585,  586. 
Gwynne,  Marmaduke,  i.  30. 
Gynne,  James,  ii.  82. 

H 

Hagerty,  J.,  i.  229,  534. 

Haggard,  Rice,  i.  431,  444,  453. 

Hall,  W.  J.,  i.  168. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  ii.  45,  70. 

Ham  met  t,  i.  73,  .318,  336,  337,  388-390, 

392,  394,  412,  4.5.5. 
Hampson,  i.  41,  103. 
Hanby,  Thomas,  i.  73,  113. 
Hanks,  Ruel,  ii.  373,  383. 
Hanna,  R.  H.  S.,  ii.  318. 
Hanna,  William,  ii.  288. 
Hannah,  John,  ii.  50. 
Hanson,  James  M.,  ii.  128,  130. 
Hare,  Edward,  i.  128. 
Harlen,  Rev.  George,  ii.  662. 
Harris,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.,  ii.  676. 
Harris,  Ivy,  i.  4.31  ;  ii.  86,  524. 
Harrod,  John  J.,  ii.  142  ,  278,  283,  284, 

296,  ;^i. 
Hartley,  J.,  i.  207. 
Haughton,  John,  ii.  320. 
Haw,  J.,  i.  323. 
Haweis,  Rev.,  i.  525-526. 
Haygood,  Dr.,  ii.  599. 
Heck,  Barbara,  i.  175,  176,  181  ;  ii.  67. 
Hedding,  E.,  i.  547;  ii.  10,  60,  110. 
Heininger,  Rev.  S.,  ii.  669. 
Heinz,  H.  J.,  ii.  6.52. 
Henkle,  Eli,  ii.  204,  287,  305,  492,  493. 
Henkle,  Elizabeth  C,  ii.  152. 
Henkle,  Moses  M.,  ii.  157,  197,  2.51,  .305, 

319. 

Henkle,  Saul,  ii.  227,  305. 

Henry,  Patrick,  i.  459. 

Hey,  Dr.,  i.  58. 

Hibbard,  Billy,  i.  482,  545. 

Hickling,  John,  i.  83. 

Hickson,  i.  305. 

Hill,  i.  44. 

Hill,  E.  J.,  ii.  6&4. 

Hill,  William  Wallace,  ii.  84,  171,  235, 
302. 

Hitt,  Daniel,  i.  519. 
Hodgson,  Dr.,  ii.  492. 
Holcombe,  William  J.,   ii.   202,  482, 
483. 

"  Honestus,"  ii.  56. 

Honour,  .John  H.,  ii.  242. 

Hopkey,  Miss,  i.  31. 

Hopper,  Christopher,  i.  32,  121,  127. 


Hopper,  P.  B.,  ii.  182,  274,  287,  405, 
406. 

Horne,  Daniel  H.,  ii.  511. 
Hoss,  Dr.,  ii.  548,  651. 
Howard,  i.  82. 
Howe,  M.,  i.  546. 
HufFsteter,  L.  R.,  ii.  317. 
Hugo,  Victor,  ii.  700. 
Hull,  Hope,  i.  4.31,  497;  ii.  24. 
Hunter,  Andrew,  ii.  298. 
Hunter,  Rev.  James,  ii.  286. 
Hunter,  William,  i.  127. 
Huntingdon,  Lady,  i.  27,  38,  73. 
Hurst,  Bishop,  i.  543. 
Hutchinson,  S.,  i.  417,  418 ;  ii.  319. 

I 

Ingham,  i.  26. 

"  Irenicum,"  Stillingfleet's,  i.  69. 
Israel,  Fielder,  ii.  126,  1.53. 
Ivy,  R.,  i.  209. 

J 

Jackson,  i.  154. 
Jaco,  i.  54. 

Jacobs,  Charles  W.,  ii.  291. 
Jacobs,  J.  J.,  i.  248. 
James,  David,  ii.  303. 
Jane,  John,  i.  32. 

Jarrett,  Rev.  Devereux,  i.  3,  196,  306. 
Jefferson,  H.,  i.  534. 
Jefferson,  T.,  i.  459. 

Jennings,  Dr.,  i.  534,  538,  5(^0,  592;  ii.  5, 
61,  74,  81,  128-132,  214,  268,  296,  397, 
398. 

Jessup,  W.,  i.  249. 

Jones,  Rev.  George,  ii.  580. 

Jones,  L.,  ii.  85. 

Johnson,  P^ev.  Dr.  J.  G.,  ii.  682. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  i.  48,  50. 
Johnston,  Pvev.  J.  P.,  ii.  632. 

K 

Keener,  Christian,  ii.  101. 
Keigley,  i.  73. 
Kelso,  T.,  ii.  52. 
Kenneday,  James  A.,  ii.  595. 
Kerley,  T.  A.,  ii.  186. 
Kesley,  William,  ii.  .322. 
Kewley,  Dr.,  i.  78,  396,  401,  402,  526. 
Kibby,  E.,  i.  .547. 

Kilham,  Alexander,  i.  105,  109,  114-119. 

King,  Dr.,  i.  161. 

King,  Lord,  i.  .56. 

King,  .John,  i.  182. 

King,  Miles,  ii.  2«)8. 

Kingswood  School,  i.  61. 

Kirkwood,  William,  ii.  652. 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


713 


Klein,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  F.  C,  i.  587, 594, 595. 
Kugley,  Martha,  i.  541. 

L 

"  Lacidar,"  ii.  292,  302. 

Lacy,  Judge,  ii.  048. 

Lacy,  W.  B.,  i.  530,  531. 

"  Laicus,"  ii.  302. 

Laishley,  Rev.  P.  T.,  ii.  025,  626. 

Lambden,  ii.  205. 

Lambert,  J.,  i.  238,  248,  323. 

Landers,  Anderson,  ii.  575. 

Larkin,  T.,  i.  248. 

Lednum,  i.  306. 

Lee,  Dr.,  ii.  476. 

Lee,  J.,  i.  203,  208,  226,  231,  235,  242,  249, 
293,  306,  307,  315, 320,  326,  347, 355,  307, 
378, 380, 414,  428,  429,  438,  440-442, 450- 
453, 400,  492-494,  502, 511,  512, 515-518, 
534,  548,  557. 

Lee,  W.,  i.  534. 

Leeds,  United  Society  of,  i.  15. 
Leonard,  G.  B.,  i.  537. 
Lessey,  i.  154. 
Lewen,  Miss,  i.  41. 
Lewis,  Rev.  T.  H.,  i.  007-616;  ii.  576. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  ii.  452. 
Lipscomb,  Rev.  A.  A.,  ii.  646,  647. 
Lipscomb,  William  Corrie,  i.  462 ;  ii.  295, 

579,  580,  593,  594. 
Littlejohn,  J.,  i.  209. 
Lord,  William,  i.  157. 
Lott,  E.,  ii.  304. 

Lovely  Lane  Chapel,  i.  203,  241,  278. 
Lowden,  S.  M.,  ii.  562. 
Lowley,  James  R.,  ii,  304. 
Loxdale,  Miss,  i.  144. 
"  Luther,"  ii.  171. 
Lyell,  T.,  i.  500. 

M 

Madison,  Bishop,  i.  410. 
Magaw,  i.  400,  402,  404. 
Mair,  G.,  i.  230. 
Major,  J.,  i.  209. 

Manakintown  Conference,  i.  222,  225. 

Marsden,  J.,  i.  154,  534,  535. 

Marshall,  Rev.  W.  H.,  ii.  255,  629. 

"  Martin  Luther,"  ii.  40,  42. 

Mason,  John,  i.  86. 

Mathews,  James  B.,  ii.  632. 

Mather,  Alexander,  i.  59,  73,  88,  107, 

109,  114-117,  121. 
Mathews,  i.  548. 
Matlack,  Rev.  L.  C,  ii.  474,  475. 
Matson,  i.  340. 
Maxwell,  i.  26-28,  531. 


Mayall,  J.  M.,  ii.  466. 

McAllum,  Daniel,  i.  51. 

McCaine,  Alexander,  i.  195,  271,  279,  280, 

298, 317, 3;{3,  384,  385,  405, 408, 444,  482  ; 

ii.  3,  10,  17,  40,  42,  01,  71,  88,  112,  172, 

184-18(5,  liK),  231,  283,  328,  .334,  401,  402. 
McClintock,  Dr.  John,  ii.  245,  246. 
McCormick,  John,  ii.  310. 
McCormick,  Thomas,  i.  5.33;  ii.  001. 
McDaniel,  Reuben,  ii.  298. 
McElroy,  ii.  361. 
McGehee,  Abner,  ii.  378, 
McKer,  Joseph,  ii.  292. 
McKinney,  I.  H.  C,  ii.  031. 
Methodist  Correspondent,  The,  ii.  280. 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  i.  9. 
Methodist  Protestant  Church,  i.  9. 
Merrett,  T.,  i.  546. 
Mervines,  S.,  i.  545. 
M'Guire,  Adjet,  ii.  287. 
Michaux,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  L.,  ii.  681. 
Miley,  Dr.,  i.  361. 
Miller,  Mrs.  M.  A.,  ii.  616. 
Miller,  Rev.  G.  P.,  ii.  611. 
Mitchell,  John,  ii.  255. 
M'Kendree,  W.,  i.  8,  431,  444^46  ,  448- 

453,  464,  497,  510,  511,  517,  520,  523, 

530,  533,  543,  548;  ii.  2-14,  19,  23-28, 

51,  60,  281,  288. 
M'Kenny,  Samuel,  ii.  224,  226. 
Moore,  H.,  i.  42,  51,  73,  100,  114,  252, 

264,  295,  317,  349,  352. 
Moore,  J.,  i.  546. 
Moravians,  German,  i.  22. 
Morgan,  A.  R.,  i.  595-598. 
Morley,  i.  10,  154. 
Morrell,  T.,  i.  300,  389. 
Morris,  Dr.  J.  G.,  ii.  307. 
Morris,  Thomas  A.,  i.  304;  ii.  303. 
M'Tyeire,  ii.  192,  193,  205,  337,  351. 
Mudge,  Enoch,  i.  405. 
Mummey,  Thomas,  ii.  287. 
Murlin,  John,  i.  127. 
Murray,  Grace,  i.  30. 
Murray,  J.  J. ,  ii.  428, 014, 408, 510, 689-591. 
Mutual  Rights,  The,  ii.  77. 

N 

Neal,  A.,  i.  534. 

"  Neale,"  ii.  103. 

Neely,  Dr.,  i.  3,  303,  021 ;  ii.  06. 

"  Nehemiah,"  ii.  7. 

Nelson,  John,  i.  20. 

Nestor,  Rev.  George,  ii.  255,  003. 

New  Connexion  Methodists,  i.  118. 

Newman,  J.,  i.  540. 

Newton,  i.  35,  155. 


714 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Newton,  Robert,  i.  128,  141. 
Nice,  Rev,  Henry,  ii.  522. 
Nichols,  Rev.  James  R.,  ii.  668. 
Norris,  Rev.  T.  F.,  ii.  303. 

O 

O'Bryan,  William,  i.  164,  165. 

Ogburn,  O.,  i.  323. 

Ogburn,  T.  J.,  ii.  651. 

Oglethorpe,  Governor,  i.  22. 

O'Kelly,  James,  i.  7,  81,  209,  224,  227, 
232-2.35,  245,  285,  287,  329,  338.  371- 
373,  380,  423,  4:30,  434-463,  471^75, 
482;  ii.  169. 

Olin,  Dr.,  ii.  300. 

Olivers,  Thomas,  i.  44,  50,  54,  127. 

Onesimus,"  ii.  292. 
Ormond,  W.,  i.  495. 
Otterbein,  AVilliam,  i.  200,  291. 
Ouseley,  i.  150. 
Owens,  Richard,  i.  188. 

P 

Paine,  ii.  19,  26. 

Palmer,  Rev.  Henry,  ii.  643,  644. 
Paris,  Rev.  John,  i.  10;  ii.  602. 
Partridge,  i.  375. 
"  Paul,"  ii.  280. 
Pawson,  i.  54,  73,  88,  109. 
Paynter,  J.,  i.  546. 
Peddicord,  P.,  i.  207. 

Peggy  Stewart,"  The,  i.  205. 
Pegram,  T.  H.,  ii.  507. 
Pennington,  R.,  i.  248. 
Percival,  John,  ii.  202. 
Perigo,  Nathaniel,  i.  178,  188,  196. 
Perronet,  Edward,  i.  31. 
Perronet,  V.,  i.  78. 
"Philadelphia,"  ii.  292. 
Phcebus,  W.,  i.  241,  242. 
Pickering,  i.  510;  ii,  22. 
Pierce,  G.  R.,  i.  549. 
Pierce,  Dr.  L.,  i.  264,  549. 
Pierce,  R.,  i.  549. 
Pigman,  I.,  i.  2.30. 

Pilmoor,  Joseph,  i.  43,  65,  183,  187,  196. 

Pinnell,  William,  ii.  304. 

Pitman,  Charles,  ii.  554. 

"  Plain  Truth,"  ii.  76. 

Plummer,  i.  4^50,  461. 

Poisel,  Dr.,  ii.  502,  503. 

Post,  Martin,  ii.  667. 

Potter,  Bishop,  i.  56. 

Poythress,  F.,  i.  203,  207,  208,  215  ,  248, 

277,  378,  479,  497,  548. 
Prather,  L.,  i.  4<U. 
Presbury,  J.,  i.  188. 
"Presbyter,"  ii.  103. 


Q 

Quinton,  William,  ii.  304. 

R 

Ragan,  J.  W.,  ii.  301. 

Ragan,  Zachariah,  ii.  549,  560. 

Ragsdale,  Baxter  H.,  ii.  254. 

Ramsburg,  Susan,  ii.  4'i3. 

Rankin,  T.,  i.  54,  71,  73,  188-197,  201, 

203,  256,  309,  335. 
Ranmore  College,  i,  121. 
Rawleigh,  S.  L.,  ii.  334. 
Redford,  Dr.  A.  H.,  ii.  302. 
Reece,  Richard,  i.  154;  ii.  50. 
Reed,  J.  J.,  ii.  328. 
Reed,  Nelson,  i.  2.30,  .378. 
Reese,  Daniel  E.,  ii.  172,  173. 
Reese,  Dr.  EU  Yeates,  ii.  75,  76,  421, 430, 

442,  448,  449. 
Reese,  Dr.  John  S.,  ii.  173,  285,  393. 
Reese,  L.  R.,  ii.  376. 
Reese,  Mrs.  T.  A.,  ii.  361,  370,  376. 
Reeves,  Hannah,  ii.  356,  501. 
Reeves,  William,  ii.  35(5,  512. 
Reilly,  i.  1.52. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  i.  84. 
Richards,  i.  28. 
Richards,  Rev.  Amon,  ii.  553. 
Richardson,  M.,  i.  556. 
Richardson,  R.,  i.  534. 
Richman,  Evert,  ii.  281. 
Richmond,  Leigh,  i.  (JO. 
Roberts,  ii.  2,  3,  82,  16-3. 
Roberts,  R.  R.,  i.  524,  527,  548. 
Robison,  Rev.  James,  ii.  645,  646. 
Rodda,  Martin,  i.  202. 
Rodgers,  Hester  Ann,  i.  49. 
Rodgers,  James,  i.  49. 
Roe,  S.,  i.  229. 
Rollins,  Isaac,  i.  188. 
Romaine,  i.  35. 
Romney,  i.  84. 

Roszel.  S.  G.,  i.  507 ;  ii.  5,  9, 10, 105, 108, 

124,  502,  503. 
Roundtree,  Charles,  ii.  293. 
Ruff,  Daniel,  i.  197. 
Runyon,  Theodore,  ii.  625. 
Rutledge,  Rev.  J.  W.,  ii.  602. 
Rylaud,  W.,  i.  545. 

S 

Saddler,  B.  F.,  ii.  222. 
"  Salvation  Army,"  i.  36. 
Scott,  Dr.,  ii.  481,  598. 
Scott,  John,  ii.  291. 
Scott,  Moses,  ii.  285. 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


716 


Scott,  Orange,  ii.  320. 
Scudder,  i.  oOG. 

Seabury,  Bishop,  i.  77,  20(;-268. 
Seamau,  Rev.  James  S.,  ii.  G(i8. 
Sellers,  H.  D.,  ii.  102. 
Seville,  Jonathan,  i,  129. 
Sewell,  James,  ii.  103. 
Sexsraith,  Rev.  John,  ii.  044,  G45. 
Shadford,  G.,  i.  205,  220,  33G. 
Sharp,  H.  M.,  ii.  134. 
Sharpe,  David,  ii.  199. 
Shaw,  Anna  M.,  ii.  617. 
Shaw.  W.,  i.  248. 

Shinn,  Asa,  1.  526;  ii.  27,  70,  88-90,  94- 
98,  101,  108,  123,  124,  143,  162-164,  171, 
201,  249,  271,  285,  287,  307-309,  323, 
355,  384,  385. 

Shinn,  William,  ii.  355. 

Shirley,  E.,  i.  35. 

Shubotham,  D.,  i.  134. 

Sias,  ii.  12. 

Sigismund,  i.  15. 

Simpson,  Bishop,  ii.  249,  577. 

Smith,  Charles  W.,  ii.  198. 

Smith,  David,  ii.  255. 

Smith,  H.,  i.  534. 

Smith,  I.,  i.  248,  378. 

Smith,  James,  i.  534,  545;  ii.  35. 

Smith,  John,  i.  32, 141, 158, 196,  249, 546 ; 
ii.  255,  335,  652. 

Smith,  Rev.  J.  J.,  ii.  83,  565. 

Snethen,  Rev.  Nicholas,  1.  4-6,  154,  189, 
198,  205,  302,  303,  316,  338,  347,  375, 
377,  424,  456-459,  482,  495,  498,  513, 
514,  526-529,  551;  ii.  9,  14-16,  20,  28, 
31,  35,  39,  51,  64,  69,  74,  89,  90,  93,  102, 
133,  134,  139,  206,  207  ,  209,  215,  236, 
237,  239,  246, 250,  256,  269,  271,  295,  297, 
305,  340,  341. 

Snethen,  Susan  H.,  ii.  282,  283. 

Snethen,  Worthington  G.,  ii.  431,  608, 609. 

Snyder,  W.  B.,  11.^336. 

Sommers,  S.,  i.  463,  475,  476,  574,  581. 

Soule,  i.  8,  510,  512,  518,  525,  547 ;  ii.  6-8, 
10-13,  15,  20,  23,  50,  51,  57,  59. 

Southerland,  S.  B.,  ii.  400,  577,  596. 

Sparks,  i.  510. 

Spray,  Rev.  William,  ii.  324. 
Springer,  C,  ii.  34,  44,  550,  651. 
Spry,  i.  375. 

Starr,  Wesley,  ii.  464,  465. 

St.  Austell,  i.  86. 

St.  John,  Eugenia  F.,  ii.  617,  618. 

Stevens,  Dr.  Abel,  i.  5,  14,  89,  124,  222, 

299,  332,  437,  562,  563,  621. 
Stevens,  William,  i.  437. 
Stevenson,  Sater,  i.  178,  188. 


Stephens,  Dr.  D.  S.,  ii.  173,  270,  G04. 
Stier,  Frederick,  ii.  374,  377. 
Stillinglloct,  Bishop,  i.  35,  68. 
Stillwoll,  W.  M.,  i.  523;  ii.  83. 
Stockton,  R(!v.  Thonuis  H.,  ii.  284,  299, 

303,  354,  r)(X),  501. 
Stockton,  W.  S.,  i.  8,  270;  ii.  21,  29-33, 

39,  41,  4(),  51,  69,  8H,  218,  220,  267,  274, 

284,  285,  375,  440,  441. 
Stowe,  B.  W.,  i.  461. 
Strawbridge,  Robert,  i.  175-182,  534. 
Strayer,  W.  M.,  i.  419,  666. 
Stubbs,  H.,  i.  557. 
Swift,  Joshua,  ii.  304. 
Swindells,  Robert,  i.  32. 
Swormstead,  Leroy,  ii.  199,  200. 

T 

Tagg,  Rev.  F.  T.,  ii.  628,  642. 
Tarver,  Edward  B.,  ii.  255. 
Taylor,  i,  73. 
Taylor,  David,  i.  26,  154. 
Taylor,  E.  T.,  i.  556. 
Taylor,  Thomas,  i.  82. 
Tennent,  i.  54. 

Thackera,  Rev.  B.  J.,  ii.  629. 
Thoburu,  Bishop,  ii.  642. 
Thompson,  William,  i.  103,  106,  107, 127. 
Thomson,  Dr.  R.  B.,  ii.  508,  628,  629. 
Thrap,  Rev.  Joel  S.,  ii.  679. 
Thrapp,  Rev.  Israel,  ii.  632. 
Thurmau,  Rev.  John,  ii.  664. 
Tigert,  Dr.,  i.  506,  507,  537-540,  569;  ii. 
6,  7. 

Tilden,  Dr.  John  B.,  ii.  312,  313. 
"  Timothy,"  ii.  98,  110. 
Tompkins,  Calvin,  ii.  645. 
Tooke,  i.  19,  20. 
Toplady,  i.  44. 

Tourgce,  Dr.  Eben,  ii.  568,  569. 

Townley,  i.  154. 

Treffry,  Richard,  i.  121, 154. 

Trimble,  J.,  i.  556. 

Trumbo,  Rev.  A.  H.,  ii.  669. 

Tyerman,  L.,  i.  34,  57,  59,  63,  261 ;  ii.  25. 

U 

Ure,  Hosea,  ii.  515. 
Urquhart,  Rev.  N.,  ii.  667. 
Usilton,  W.  B.,  ii.  584. 

V 

Valiant,  T,  D.,  ii.  566. 
Valton,  John,  i.  53. 
Vandervort,  W.,  ii.  542. 
Varden,  John,  ii.  578. 
Varden,  Josiah,  ii.  324,  427,  578. 


716 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Varden,  Robert  B.,  ii.  370,  578. 

Vasey,  Thomas,  i.  157,  258,  200,  2G9,  339. 

Venn,  i.  35. 

Vickers,  Hon.  George,  ii.  387,  579. 
Victor,  John,  ii.  202. 

Vindex,"  ii.  110. 
Vizelle,  Mrs.,  i.  31,  48,  58. 

W 

Wakeley,  i.  175. 
Walker,  i.  395. 

Walker,  Rev.  J.  B.,  ii.  541,  577,  649. 
Wallace,  W.  W.,  ii.  2G9. 
Wallbridge,  Elizabeth,  i.  59,  90. 
Walsh,  Thomas,  i.  32. 
Walton,  i.  170. 

Ward,  Rev.  Julius  H.,  i.  409^11. 
Ward,  Rev.  J.  T.,  ii.  679. 
Ward,  Robert  P.,  ii.  319. 
Ward,  Ulysses,  ii.  493. 
Ware,  Thomas,  i.  242,  243,  248. 
Warren,  President,  i.  299. 
Warren,  Samuel,  i.  155. 
Warrener,  i.  73. 
Washington,  E.  R.,  ii.  293. 
Washington,  George,  i.  308,  385. 
"  Waters,"  ii.  41. 

Waters,  Dr.  Francis,  ii.  61,  63,  115,  119, 
123,  255,  269,  346,  347,  461,  493,  494. 

Watson,  John,  i.  497. 

Watson,  John  F.,  ii.  80. 

Watson,  Richard,  i.  51,  57,  65,  154,  158. 

Watters,  William,  i.  178,  182,  188,  204, 
214,  217-219,  221-224,  237,  301,  500,  545. 

Waugh,  A.,  i.  550. 

Waugh,  Beverly,  i.  534,  550 ;  ii.  48,  49, 
302. 

Waugh,  Thomas,  i.  151. 
Webb,  Thomas,  i.  175,  176,  196. 
Webster,  Augustus,  ii.  170,  324,  332,  333, 

336,  342,  464,  576,  614,  646. 
Webster,  Isaac,  ii.  376. 
Webster,  Richard,  i.  178,  188. 
Wells,  J.,  i.  464,  496;  ii.  11,  107. 
Wells,  Rev.  Thomas,  ii.  588. 
Wesley,  Charles,  i.  11-18,  20-22,  25,  27, 

32,  38,  39,  43,  54,  56,  59,  67,  74,  84,  111, 

174,  263,  30i^311. 
Wesley,  John,  i.  6,  7,  11,  12,  14-17,  IJ)- 

89,  91-113,  174,  228  ,  243,  254-258,  263, 

285,  318,  319,  350-356,  406,  470,  541, 

542,  573;  ii.  111-113,  174,  179, 189,  219, 

272-274. 

Whatcoat,  i.  70,  71,  157,  231,  258,  260, 
269, 286.  375,  464,  479-481,  486,  494,  500. 


Wheat,  Rev.  E.  A.,  ii.  541,  667,  668. 
Whedon,  Rev.  D.  D.,  ii.  521. 
Whitaker,  Speir,  ii.  212. 
White,  i.  375,  405,  412,  413. 
White,  Alward,  i.  546. 
White,  Judge,  i.  206,  215,  230. 
Whitefield,  George,  i.  17,  18,  25  ;  ii.  691. 
Whitehead,  John,  i.  12,  15,  18,  21,  24,  32, 

51,  56,  63,  64,  72,  84,  85,  88,  92,  95,  569, 
Whitehurst,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  S.,  ii.  595. 
Whitfield,  J.  G.,  ii.  291,  469,  508,  579. 
Whitney,  William,  ii.  578. 
Whitworth,  Abraham,  i.  197. 
Widney,  Rev.  A.  H.,  ii.  539,  628. 
Wilberforce,  William,  i.  131,  146,  147. 
Williams,  James  R.,  i.  10;  ii.  33,  75,  87, 

275,  296,  323,  358. 
Williams,  Robert,  i.  181,  182. 
Willis,  H.,  i.  209,  320,  323. 
Wills,  R.  H.,  ii.  542. 
Wills,  Rev.  William  H.,  ii.  542,  644. 
Wilmer,  Simon,  i.  405. 
Wilson,  Rev.  David,  ii.  449. 
Wilson,  Joseph  P.,  ii.  536,  575. 
Wilson,  Rachel,  ii.  600. 
Winfree,  Christopher,  ii.  202. 
Wirt,  William,  ii.  175. 
Witcher,  W.  J.,  ii.  517. 
Witsel,  Rev.  I.  K.,  ii.  304,  629,  630. 
Woody,  E.  L.,  ii.  538. 
Wooster,  H.  C,  i.  546. 
Wren,  W.,  i.  207. 
Wright,  Duncan,  i.  32. 
Wright,  Richard,  i.  45. 
Wyatt,  Dr.,  i.  403. 
Wyatt,  J.,  i.  238. 
Wynne,  R.  W.  W.,  ii.  290. 

Y 

Yadkin  Institute,  ii.  419. 
Yarborough,  Lewis,  ii.  503. 
Yearbry,  Joseph,  i.  189. 
Yearley,  Alexander,  ii.  133,  134. 
Yellalee,  K.,  i.  546. 
Young,  David,  i.  519. 

Z 

Zipes,  J.,  ii.  354. 

Zollickoffer,  Rev.  Daniel,  ii.  627. 
Zollickoffer,  Henry  Fletcher,  ii.  558,  561, 
627,  628. 

Zollickoffer,  Dr.  William,  ii.  142,  206, 

223,  277. 
"  Zwingli,"  ii.  76. 


DATE  DUE 

t  

1 

GAYLORD 

PRiNTED  IN  U  S  A. 

